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THE  EDUCATIONAL  IDEAL 
IN  THE  MINISTRY 


i^^i§^y^°- 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON  •   CHICAGO 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •   BOMBAY  •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  IDEAL 
IN  THE  MINISTRY 


THE  LYMAN   BEECHER  LECTURES 

AT  YALE  UNIVERSITY 

IN  THE  YEAR  1908 


BY 
WILLIAM    HERBERT   PERRY   FAUNCE 

PRESIDENT  OF  BROWN  UNIVERSITY 


THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1908 

AH  rights  rettrved 


^4->  y  '^  u  / 


F3 


GtWER^L 


Copyright,  1908, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  November,  1908. 


J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


FOREWORD 

The  following  addresses  were  delivered  as  the 
Lyman  Beecher  Lectures  at  Yale  University  in 
March,  1908,  and  a  few  weeks  later  were  repeated 
in  a  somewhat  diflferent  form  as  the  Earle  Lectures 
at  the  Pacific  Theological  Seminary  of  Berkeley, 
California.  They  contain  no  information  on  any 
subject;  but  are  designed  to  give  —  what  is  perhaps 
the  only  gift  one  man  can  really  make  to  another  — 
a  point  of  view. 

Many  ministers  to-day  have  a  dim  and  baffled 
feeling  that  their  work  is  somehow  not  fully  cor- 
related with  the  life  of  the  modem  world.  They 
stand  like  David  when  he  had  rejected  Saul's  armor 
and  had  not  yet  found  his  own  —  bravely  facing 
the  gigantic  form,  but  uncertain  as  to  the  method 
of  attack.  They  are  striving  to  define  their  own 
calling  afresh  and  adjust  it  to  novel  and  rapidly 
changing  conditions.  Must  the  prophet  decrease, 
because  the  teacher  has  increased?  The  questions 
forced  upon  us  by  the  obvious  reinterpretation  of 
the  minister's  function  are  of  interest  not  to  cler- 
gymen only,  but  to  every  believer  in  Christianity 
and  to  every  student  of  social  and  moral  progress. 
The  writer,  having  spent  fifteen  years  in  the  active 


1 7r^f^*? 


VI  FOREWORD 

ministry,  and  ten  years  in  the  still  more  active  task 
of  educational  administration,  has  attempted  to 
show  that  the  relation  of  the  two  spheres  of  preacher 
and  teacher  is  closer  and  more  vital  than  has  yet 
been  recognized;  and  that  the  educational  con- 
ception of  the  ministry  —  though  other  ideals  may 
be  important  and  valuable  —  will  be  especially 
fruitful  in  our  time. 

He  begs  leave  to  express  his  indebtedness  for 
candid  counsel  and  illuminating  suggestion  to  his 
friends.  Rev.  Robert  A.  Ashworth  and  Professor 
Gerald  Bimey  Smith,  and  to  his  colleague,  Pro- 
fessor Walter  G.  Everett. 

Providence,  September  i,  1908. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I 


PACK 

The  Place  op  the  Minister  in  Modern  Life       .        i 


CHAPTER   II 

The  Attitude  of  Religious  Leaders  toward  New 

Truth 39 

CHAPTER  III 
Modern  Uses  of  Ancient  Scripture      ...      75 

CHAPTER  IV 
The  Demand  for  Ethical  Leadership  .       •       .113 

CHAPTER  V 
The  Service  of  Psychology    .        .       .       .       •    153 

CHAPTER  VI 
The  Direction  of  Religious  Education       •       •    193 

CHAPTER  VII 
The  Relation  of  the  Church  and  the  College     223 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Education  of  the  Minister  by  his  Task      .    257 

vii 


THE    PLACE   OF    THE    MINISTER    IN    MODERN 
LIFE 

"  The  teachers  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firma- 
ment, and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars 
forever  and  ever."  —  Dan.  xii.  3. 

"  A  good  preacher  should  have  these  properties  and  virtues: 
first,  to  teach  systematically.  ..."  —  Luther,  TabU-Talk, 


>^     OFT  HE 

UNIVERSITY 


LECTURE  I 

THE  PLACE  OF  THE  MINISTER  IN  MODERN  LIFE 

All  professions  and  occupations  are  in  our  time 
being  subjected  anew  to  the  ancient  question, 
*'Cui  bono?'*  No  calling  is  so  venerable,  so  in- 
trenched in  honor  and  office,  that  it  can  escape  the 
demand,  —  sometimes  brusque  and  irreverent,  but 
at  the  heart  of  it  thoroughly  justifiable  —  What  is 
the  use?  On  the  threshold  of  our  study,  therefore, 
we  may  well  ask :  What  is  the  use  of  being  a  minister, 
and  what  is  the  function  of  the  ministry  in  modem 
society? 

The  vast  changes  through  which  the  world  has 
passed  in  the  last  fifty  years  —  changes  industrial, 
economic,  political,  religious,  changes  in  our  ideals 
of  freedom,  of  success,  of  culture,  of  morality  — 
have  created  many  new  professions,  and  have 
seriously  affected  the  standing  of  the  three  time- 
honored  professions,  medicine,  the  ministry,  and 
the  law. 

The  practice  of  medicine  is  a  calling  vastly  more 
important  and  influential  than  it  was  two  generations 
ago.    The  equipment  of  the  physician  is  far  sounder 

3 


4  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN  THE   MINISTRY 

and  more  scientific,  his  spirit  is  more  heroic  and  at 
the  same  time  more  catholic,  than  formerly,  and  his 
decisions  are  vital  to  our  individual  happiness  and 
our  municipal  and  national  health.  As  regards  the 
legal  profession,  we  must  confess  that  it  has  not 
gained  in  recent  years  in  popular  regard  or  in  de- 
termining influence.  While  our  lawyers  are  better 
trained  than  formerly,  they  have  often  become 
attaches  of  industrial  corporations,  and  in  so  doing 
have,  without  any  deliberate  desertion  of  ideals, 
been  forced  to  exchange  a  national  horizon  and  the 
promotion  of  justice  for  the  endeavor  to  make  law 
minister  to  the  advancement  of  corporate  industry. 
Such  an  aim  compels  extreme  specialization  in 
study,  and,  if  unchecked  by  the  larger  view,  may 
bring  it  about  that  the  lawyer  becomes  the  greatest 
obstacle  to  the  enforcement  of  law.  It  is  time  for 
all  broad-minded  and  true-hearted  men  in  the  legal 
profession  to  protest  against  the  permanent  surrender 
of  its  deeper  and  nobler  ideals. 

The  greatest  change  wrought  among  modem 
callings  has  been  in  the  relative  scope  and  influence 
of  the  ministry.  There  are  those  who  tell  us  that 
this  is  now  a  discredited  profession,  and  many  facts 
seem  at  first  to  support  that  view.  Few  young 
men  of  strong  personality  and  power  of  leadership 
are  now  choosing  the  ministry  as  the  vehicle  of  self- 
expression  or  the  means  of  moral  uplift.  Our 
college  graduates  of  greatest  intellectual  vitality  are 


PLACE  OF   THE   MINISTER   IN   MODERN   LIFE        5 

usually  drafted  into  business  pursuits  or  into  scien- 
tific research,  and  those  who  do  choose  the  ministry 
are  often  the  young  men  of  rather  passive  suscepti- 
bilities and  gelatinous  fibre.  Many  ministers  are 
not  eager  to  have  their  own  sons  enter  a  calling 
beset  with  novel  difficulties.  The  clergyman  as 
depicted  in  the  popular  novel  or  on  the  modem 
stage  is  frequently  not  a  virile  or  attractive  person. 
Short  pastorates  betoken  a  restlessness  on  the  part 
of  pew  and  pulpit.  There  is  a  widespread  disinclina- 
tion to  attend  church,  and  a  doubt,  half  serious,  half 
jocose,  as  to  whether  listening  to  a  public  exhortation 
twice  on  Sunday  is  the  best  way  for  a  thoughtful 
man  to  spend  his  day  of  rest.  The  pointlessness 
of  much  church-going  impresses  even  those  who 
believe  in  its  possible  value.  These  and  kindred 
facts  do  not  constitute  a  trumpet  summons  to  our 
ablest  college  graduates;  they  rather  give  color  to 
the  nebulous  notion  that  somehow  the  laboratory, 
or  the  library,  or  the  magazine,  or  the  social  settle- 
ment, is  henceforth  to  do  the  work  of  the  Christian 
pulpit. 

Yet  while  the  air  is  full  of  these  doubts  and 
scruples,  we  are  confronted  with  the  fact  that  outside 
the  pulpit  preaching  is  to-day  more  widespread, 
more  vigorous,  more  effective,  and  more  in  demand 
than  at  any  time  during  the  last  hundred  years. 
We  live  in  an  age  not  only  of  reaction  from  the  crass 
materialism  of  which  Professor  Haeckel  is  a  belated 


6  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

exponent,  but  an  age  of  unprecedented  ethical  in- 
terest, of  altruistic  enthusiasm,  of  a  moral  passion 
that  overflows  all  ecclesiastical  channels  and  con- 
ventional modes  of  expression  and  spreads  like  a 
great  river  nearing  the  sea.  Preaching  is  at  last 
getting  outside  the  churches,  as  it  always  has  done 
in  ages  of  great  moral  advance.  The  preacher  is 
not  always  or  usually  an  ordained  official  —  he 
is  a  college  professor,  a  political  leader,  a  judge 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  a  diplomat,  or  the  governor 
of  a  state.  When  the  President  of  Yale  University 
publishes  a  volume  of  baccalaureates,  do  we  find 
them  less  vital  and  persuasive  because  the  symbol 
of  his  office  is  a  mace  rather  than  a  mitre?  When 
Princeton's  presidency  passed  from  the  theologian 
to  the  economist,  did  Princeton  weaken  in  any 
degree  its  appeal  to  the  conscience  and  aspiration  of 
young  manhood  ?  The  addresses  of  the  chief  magis- 
trate of  our  republic  are  usually  sermons.^  In  their 
deliberate  iteration  of  obvious  principles,  in  their 
direct  summons  to  moral  action,  in  their  fearless 
rebuke  of  evil  as  the  speaker  sees  it,  in  their  ex- 
altation of  primitive  and  homely  virtues,  they  recall 
the  best  preaching  of  colonial  days.  Whoever  has 
heard  a  lecture  by  the  political  leader  who  has  in 
recent  years  more  than  once  been  an  unsuccessful 
candidate  for  the  presidency,  has  heard  an  address 

*  The  references  to  men  in  public  life  were  made  in  the  year 
1908. 


PLACE   OP   THE   MINISTER    IN    MODERN   LIPS        7 

precisely  such  as  may  be  heard  in  a  thousand 
churches  —  only  reenforced  by  unusual  gifts  native 
and  acquired.  When  the  present  Governor  of  New 
York  State  speaks  from  the  pine  boards  of  a  county 
fair,  or  the  rear  platform  of  a  train,  he  is  simply 
enunciating  the  primal  verities  which  his  father 
uttered  for  forty  years  from  the  pulpit  of  a  single 
denomination.  When  our  Secretary  of  State  speaks 
in  South  American  capitals,  his  fundamental  appeal 
is  not  to  love  of  gain  or  glory,  but  to  the  sentiments  of 
justice,  brotherhcxxl  and  spiritual  unity  which  it  is 
the  direct  aim  of  Christianity  to  create  and  main- 
tain. But  this  modem  preaching  has  shaken  off  the 
shackles  of  the  homiletic  ** firstly"  and  ** secondly"; 
it  has  escaped  from  surplice  and  pulpit  and  dim  reli- 
gious light ;  it  has  ceased  to  care  for  metaphysical  for- 
mula, and  girding  itself  with  the  weapons  of  the  time, 
it  sallies  forth  in  broad  daylight  into  market-place 
and  mill  and  legislature  and  court,  to  do  battle  for 
the  moral  ideals  of  the  race.  And  the  multitudes 
throng  and  crowd  to  hear  it.  Preaching  out  of 
date?  There  is  more  eagerness  to  hear  a  worthy 
appeal  to  the  sense  of  duty  to-day  than  ever  before 
since  Miles  Standish  stepped  on  Plymouth  Rock. 

In  the  realm  of  literature  the  same  phenomenon 
is  seen.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  like  every  other 
Scotsman,  could  not  refrain  from  preaching.  His 
"Lay  Morals"  have  penetrated  minds  that  were 
impervious  to  any  treatise,  his  "Vailima  Prayers" 


8  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN  THE   MINISTRY 

have  been  repeated  by  thousands  who  shun  all  lit- 
urgies, and  through  life  he  called  ethics  his  *'  veiled 
mistress."  While  nine- tenths  of  our  modern  fiction 
is  anaemic  and  flaccid,  the  other  one-tenth  is  the 
vehicle  of  our  most  intense  reforming  passion. 
Thackeray  and  Dickens  have  scourged  our  pleasant 
vices,  and  no  preacher  of  the  present  day  could 
lay  bare  our  social  sins  more  pitilessly  than  is 
done  in  "The  House  of  Mirth"  and  "The  Fruit 
of  the  Tree."  The  socialistic  periodicals  of  our 
time  flame  with  that  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  and 
devotion  to  advancing  ideals  which  ought  to  mark 
our  religious  press.  The  labor  leaders,  speaking 
in  dingy  halls  or  on  the  public  square,  often  show 
as  much  love  for  humanity  and  devotion  to  its  up- 
lifting as  can  be  easily  discerned  in  our  "master- 
pieces of  pulpit  eloquence."  Indeed,  our  pulpits 
are  sometimes  put  to  blush  by  the  fervor  and  con- 
viction of  men  who  breathe  an  ampler  ether  and 
speak  in  more  convincing  tones.  Just  when  the 
pulpit  had  become  cautious  in  affirming  the  belief 
in  immortaUty,  then  came  John  Fiske  to  exalt  in 
the  name  of  cosmic  philosophy  such  belief  as  "an 
act  of  faith  in  the  reasonableness  of  God's  work." 
Just  as  we  were  thinking  that  religion  must  be 
more  modest  in  the  presence  of  science,  comes  even 
Professor  Huxley  to  declare  that  "science  teaches 
in  the  clearest  and  strongest  manner  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  entire  surrender  to  the  will  of  God." 


PLACE  OP  THE   MINISTER   IN   MODERN   LIPE       Q 

When  our  faint  hearts  are  wondering  if  it  is  any 
longer  safe  to  say  "I  know,"  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
comes  forward  to  affirm  a  spiritual  life  with  un- 
changing standards  and  undying  hopes. 

We  often  hear  it  suggested  that  religion  is  losing 
its  grasp  on  life  because  we  no  longer  keep  the 
annual  days  of  fasting  and  painful  introspection; 
yet,  as  an  English  visitor  has  recently  pointed  out, 
the  month  of  June  with  its  college  commencements 
is  a  time  when  the  whole  country  looks  inward  and 
upward.  From  hundreds  of  commencement  plat- 
forms the  foremost  men  of  the  country  are  in  that 
month  taking  an  account  of  our  moral  stock,  ap- 
praising our  national  success,  rebuking  our  foibles 
and  purifying  our  ideals.  The  chief  value  of  many 
colleges  is  not  in  the  students  they  educate,  but  in 
the  reaction  of  the  college  on  the  community  about 
it,  demanding  of  the  community  continuous  sacrifice 
for  unseen  ends,  uplifting  new  standards,  creating 
new  horizons,  and  filling  whole  sections  of  the 
country  with  noble  discontent.  If  thus  the  college 
in  any  measure  does  the  work  of  the  church,  therein 
the  church  rejoices.  Preaching  to-day  is  in  con- 
stant and  urgent  demand,  and  our  country  is  alive 
with  novel  forms  of  moral  appeal. 

Should  the  modem  preacherthen  leave  the  pulpit 
in  order  to  deliver  his  message?  Should  he  seek 
public  office  or  enter  diplomatic  ""service  in  order 
to  gain  the  ear  and  sway  the  mind  of  the  nation? 


10  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

What  is  his  proper  place  and  function  in  society? 
At  once  we  are  met  by  four  conceptions  of  the  min- 
istry, four  stages  in  the  evolution  of  the  Protestant 
idea  of  the  preacher's  task.  We  may  call  them 
the  hturgical,  the  magisterial,  the  oratorical,  and 
the  educational  conceptions  of  the  ministry.  These 
conceptions  have  not  always  appeared  in  the  same 
order  of  succession.  They  may,  and  often  do,  co- 
exist in  the  same  community.  There  is  some  truth 
in  each  one.  Yet  on  the  whole  they  constitute  a 
genuine  development  which  is  worth  our  study. 

I.  The  liturgical  conception  of  the  minister's 
task  was  supreme  in  the  mediaeval  church.  Doubt- 
less it  entered  the  primitive  Christian  community 
as  an  inheritance  from  the  Old  Testament,  where 
the  religious  ceremony  often  appears  as  the  great 
essential  in  the  preservation  of  religious  life.  Clem- 
ent in  his  epistle  draws  out  the  analogy  between 
the  Christian  pastor  and  the  Jewish  priest,  and 
develops  the  liturgical  conception  of  his  work. 
Cyprian  advances  on  this  analogy  and  gives  us  the 
full-fledged  idea  of  the  Christian  priesthood  as 
distinct  and  separate  from  the  laity.  Most  vividly 
was  this  idea  embodied  in  the  ecclesiastical  archi- 
tecture of  the  Middle  Ages.  If  architecture  in 
general  may  be  called  "frozen  music,"  then  church 
architecture  is  certainly  congealed  theology.  Some- 
how the  beliefs  men  hold  find  unmistakable  utter- 
ance in  the  structures  they  build.    Nearly  every 


PLACE   OF   THE    MINISTER    IN    MODERN   LIFE      II 

church  of  mediaeval  Europe  by  its  cruciform  ground- 
plan  proclaimed  its  faith  in  the  Eternal  Sacrifice, 
and  by  its  separation  of  nave  and  choir  uttered  its 
belief  in  the  separation  of  priest  and  people.  Be- 
tween the  choir  and  the  nave  stood  the  great  screen, 
often  curiously  wrought  and  richly  adorned,  but 
strong  and  immovable,  a  prohibition  and  a  barrier. 
Before  the  screen  were  the  people,  to  listen,  to 
receive,  and  to  obey.  Behind  it  were  the  divinely 
chosen  office-bearers,  to  interpret  authoritatively 
the  divine  will,  and  by  performance  of  appointed 
rites  to  wash  away  sin  and  to  render  the  wor- 
shippers acceptable  to  God.  The  working  of  the 
daily  miracle  of  the  mass  was  deemed  vastly  more 
important  than  any  oral  teaching  could  be.  Or- 
dination was  the  chief  sacrament,  since  without 
due  succession  in  the  apostolic  line  the  church 
itself  must  cease  to  be.  To  transmit  the  authority 
unimpaired  and  to  continue  the  sacred  rites  un- 
broken was  the  great  essential  of  the  priestly  office. 
Even  the  most  sympathetic  interpreter  must 
see  the  perils  which  lurk  in  such  a  conception  of 
the  minister's  task.  In  its  grosser  forms,  such  an 
ideal  of  the  minister  makes  him  the  mere  agent  of 
the  hierarchy,  subordinating  truth  to  safety  and 
profiting  by  popular  ignorance.  Even  in  its  most 
refined  forms  the  liturgical  idea  is  constantly  liable 
to  be  confused  with  the  magical.  Whenever  the 
office  is  separated  from  the  character  of  the  man  who 


12  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

fills  it,  whenever  some  venerable  formula  is  used 
as  an  incantation,  whenever  some  sacred  rite  is 
supposed  to  confer  grace  apart  from  the  moral 
attitude  of  those  who  receive  it  —  then  we  have 
simply  pagan  magic  masking  itself  under  Christian 
symbol.  The  only  way  by  which  the  noblest  lit- 
urgies and  ceremonies  can  be  kept  Christian  is  by 
the  constant  affirmation  that  they  are  but  symbols 
in  and  through  which  the  loftiest  truth  is  made 
vivid  and  intelligible  to  mind  and  heart.  The 
priestly  —  in  the  sense  of  representative  —  func- 
tion is  indeed  perpetual.  To  approach  the  High- 
est in  behalf  of  the  lowest  and  feeblest  is  a  high 
privilege.  But  how  easily  this  idea  glides  into  the 
trust  in  some  opus  operatum,  how  deftly  it  sub- 
stitutes an  exterior  for  an  interior,  and  confuses 
priesthood  with  priestcraft,  all  Christian  history  is 
witness.  Our  only  preservation  from  these  perils 
is  in  the  constant  reiterated  teaching  that  no  office 
can  lift  a  man  above  the  level  of  his  own  character, 
and  no  ceremony  can  be  more  than  "an  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace." 
2.  The  Puritan  movement  revolted  sharply  from 
the  liturgical  idea.  Under  the  influence  of  the  great 
reaction,  the  cathedral  was  forsaken  and  replaced 
by  the  wooden  chapel  or  meeting-house,  the  Gre- 
gorian chant  was  exchanged  for  the  metrical  atroci- 
ties of  Tate  and  Brady,  and  **the  anthem  high 
and  service  clear"  made  room  for  the  reasoned  and 


PLACE   OF   THE    MINISTER   IN    MODERN    LIFE      1 3 

elaborate  sermon,  often  seeming  to  assume  that  to 
confute  and  to  convert  are  synonymous  terms.  But 
if  the  Reformers  and  the  Puritans  lost  ministerial 
power  in  one  direction,  they  gained  it  in  another. 
Deprived  of  the  power  of  the  keys,  they  grasped  the 
power  of  the  desk  and  of  the  sword.  They  assumed 
control  of  the  education  of  youth  and  of  the  faith 
of  adults.  No  prelate  ever  wielded  more  auto- 
cratic powers  than  Calvin  at  Geneva,  and  his  claim 
for  the  "divine  ministry"  now  seems  to  us  amazing. 
The  theocracy  of  Massachusetts  continued  the 
same  tradition,  and  in  the  days  of  Cotton  Mather 
Christian  ministers  were  clothed  with  power  to  give 
authoritative  interpretations  of  truth  which  were 
enforced  by  the  penal  code. 

In  one  respect  the  Puritan  ministry  of  the  Ameri- 
can colonies  was  right,  —  it  recovered  and  nobly 
maintained  the  idea  of  the  ministry  as  involv- 
ing fundamentally  the  teaching  function.  Those 
wearisome  discourses  with  their  innumerable  sub- 
divisions were  at  least  addressed  to  intelligence, 
not  to  mere  sentiment  or  passion.  The  doctrinal 
sermons,  long  since  relegated  to  dust  and  oblivion, 
had  at  least  this  dignity,  —  they  conceived  the  con- 
gregation as  a  thoughtful  assembly,  demanding 
and  deserving  serious  instruction,  and  the  preacher 
addressed  himself  year  after  year  to  the  task  of 
indoctrinating  a  whole  community  in  truth.  Dog- 
matic as  the  method  was,  formal  and  remote  from 


14  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

life  as  the  discourses  now  seem,  we  must  at  least 
acknowledge  that  such  sermons  were  a  species  of 
deliberate  and  continuous  public  education,  furnish- 
ing an  intellectual  basis  for  the  great  religious 
awakenings  and  the  patriotic  uprisings  of  a  later 
time. 

But  it  is  needless  to  dwell  on  a  conception  which 
our  age  has  left  far  behind.  The  magisterial  idea 
is  an  alien  in  the  modern  world.  The  minister 
who  should  now  assume  the  attitude  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal infallibility,  and  rely  upon  the  machinery  of  the 
law  in  order  to  compel  assent,  would  show  himself 
a  belated  straggler.  If  he  takes  the  sword,  he  shall 
perish  with  the  sword.  Even  the  Roman  Catholic 
church  in  America  wants  no  real  alliance  with  the 
state.  The  ministry  has  gained  immensely  by  ap- 
pearing in  our  time  as  it  really  is,  —  a  fundamentally 
religious  calling,  asking  the  state  only  to  stand  out 
of  its  sunlight  and  give  it  a  fair  opportunity  to  serve 
and  save  humanity. 

3.  But  many  of  us  were  brought  up  under  the 
idea  that  the  minister  is  primarily  an  orator.  This 
dominated  the  great  French  preachers  Bossuet 
and  Massillon,  it  shaped  the  style  of  Barrow  and 
Tillotson,  of  Liddon  and  Spurgeon,  and  the  early 
pioneer  conditions  in  America  furnished  just  the 
plastic  and  responsive  environment  in  which  re- 
ligious oratory  could  flourish.  The  profound  reli- 
gious faith  in  which  the  colonies  were  established, 


PLACE   OF  THE   MINISTER   IN   MODERN   LIFE      1 5 

the  absence  of  the  forms  which  belong  to  an  older 
civilization,  the  atmosphere  of  freedom,  the  demand 
for  personal  initiative,  the  longing  for  effective 
leadership,  the  simplicity  and  unconventionality 
of  much  American  life  —  all  this  offered  unpar- 
alleled opportunity  for  fervid,  moving,  masterful 
preaching,  and  no  country  in  the  world  has  devel- 
oped a  larger  number  of  so-called  "pulpit  orators" 
than  the  land  of  Finney  and  Beecher  and  Bellows 
and  Storrs.  The  service  such  men  rendered  was 
beyond  price.  They  gathered  up  in  themselves  the 
finest  impulses  of  their  time.  They  could  assume 
a  common  fund  of  religious  knowledge  in  the  con- 
gregation, a  previous  instruction  in  the  Bible  and 
in  Christian  doctrine,  and  upon  the  training  already 
received  in  the  home  the  appeal  of  the  pulpit  was 
based.  These  great  preachers  became  the  mouth- 
pieces of  democracy.  They  interpreted  the  republic 
to  itself.  They  translated  "the  sinless  years  that 
breathed  beneath  the  Syrian  blue"  into  the  free, 
progressive,  tumultuous  life  of  America.  They  often 
appeared  as  logic  on  fire.  They  swept  the  whole 
gamut  of  human  penitence  and  aspiration.  They 
were  often  the  most  wide-visioned  and  comprehen- 
sive personalities  in  the  community,  and  stripped 
of  all  priestly  or  magisterial  claims,  they  received 
the  homage  due  to  sincere  and  virile  personality 
gladly  flung  into  the  service  of  truth. 
Under  the  influence  of  this  conception  of  the  min- 


1 6  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

istry,  our  ecclesiastical  architecture  has  changed. 
Churches  have  become  primarily  places  for  listen- 
ing to  the  spoken  word.  The  sanctuary  has  given 
way  in  some  places  to  the  ''auditorium.'^  The 
music  has  become  simple  and  popular,  the  hymns 
less  expressive  of  divine  majesty  and  more  sensitive 
to  human  need.  The  atmosphere  of  reverence 
and  worship  has  been  insensibly  merged  in  the 
atmosphere  of  kindly  human  sympathy,  and  the 
entire  congregation  has  offered  itself  to  the  gifted 
preacher  that  he  may  play  upon  it  as  he  will.  So 
long  as  Christian  society  needs  a  spokesman,  so 
long  as  there  are  wrongs  demanding  protest  and 
rights  to  be  defended,  so  long  as  humanity  must 
be  summoned  and  inspired,  the  task  of  the  Christian 
orator  will  remain. 

Yet  there  are  obvious  limitations  and  defects 
in  the  oratorical  conception  of  the  minister.  In 
the  first  place,  it  rules  out  of  the  ministry  nine-tenths 
of  our  young  men,  since  the  vast  majority  are  quite 
incapable  of  oratory.  It  finds  no  place  for  the 
cool  and  careful  scholar,  for  the  quiet  effective 
administrator,  for  the  thinker  poor  in  speech  but 
rich  in  germinating  ideas,  for  the  organizer  of  social 
forces,  for  the  teacher  who  fails  in  formal  address 
but  shines  in  the  give-and-take  of  personal  inter- 
course. A  conception  of  the  ministry  which  makes 
the  great  majority  of  men  ineligible  is  surely  in- 
adequate and  misleading.     Only  here  and  there  do 


PLACE   OF   THE   MINISTER    IN    MODERN    LIFE      1/ 

we  find  a  Boanerges,  an  Apollos,  a  Chrysostom. 
But  a  calling  which  is  to  reach  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men  must  have  room  in  it  for  more  than  one  kind 
of  capacity. 

Moreover,  the  preacher's  output  must  be  a  con- 
tinuous weekly  production.  Can  any  living  man 
produce  forty  or  fifty  orations  each  year?  Not  even 
Daniel  Webster  could  have  evolved  a  reply  to  Hayne 
once  a  week.  The  essential  condition  of  the  great 
oration  is  a  great  occasion,  an  unusual  contingency, 
the  stir  and  zest  of  some  rare  and  momentous  event. 
He  who  is  to  address  the  same  assembly  twice  a  week 
for  ten  years  must  adopt  a  dififerent  aim,  or  he  will 
in  the  very  nature  of  things  disappoint  himself  and 
all  who  hear  him. 

Against  this  conception  is  arrayed  also  the  in- 
stinctive feeling  of  our  generation,  which  has  be- 
come suspicious  of  mere  oratory.  The  master  of 
assemblies  has  his  place  in  this  age  as  in  every 
other,  but  our  generation  could  not  listen  to-day 
with  patience  to  Edward  Everett  or  Charles  Sumner. 
An  age  in  which  ''economy  of  attention"  is  proposed 
as  the  basis  of  good  writing  has  no  time  or  incli- 
nation for  the  sonorous  periods,  the  word-painting, 
the  perorations  of  other  days.  A  good  style,  written 
or  spoken,  is  like  a  pane  of  clear  glass  through 
which  we  can  see  all  objects  in  true  proportion  and 
perspective.  A  bad  or  "eloquent"  style  is  like  a 
stained-glass  window  —  men  look  at  it  but  cannot 
c 


1 8  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

see  through  it.  The  directness,  sincerity  and  sim- 
plicity of  public  speech  in  our  time  makes  the 
"pulpit  orator'^  as  much  out  of  place  as  the  sound- 
ing-board and  the  hour-glass.  The  elaborate  works 
on  homiletics  which  once  were  on  every  minister's 
shelves  now  seem  curiously  cumbersome  and  anti- 
quated. They  conceived  the  sermon  as  a  work 
of  art  or  architecture,  something  to  be  built  up 
piece  by  piece,  consisting  always  of  the  same  sort 
of  introduction,  proposition,  development,  etc.  — 
something  ingenious,  artificial,  and  too  often  life- 
less. Preachers  of  that  school  thought  far  more  of 
the  development  of  a  subject  than  the  attainment 
of  an  object,  and  when  we  hear  one  of  them  to-day, 
he  seems  ghostly  and  unreal.  The  pulpit  is  not 
a  place  for  display  of  rhetorical  or  logical  skill, 
not  an  easel  for  a  work  of  art,  not  a  "throne  of 
eloquence."  It  is  an  opportunity  to  grapple  with 
human  lives;  it  offers  "thirty  minutes  to  wake 
the  dead  in."  And  an  attempt  at  Ciceronian  elo- 
quence must  be  in  such  circumstances  an  indication 
of  Ciceronian  character. 

4.  The  church  of  to-day  must  consider  afresh  the 
earliest  of  all  the  conceptions  of  Christian  preach- 
ing —  that  indicated  in  the  far-reaching  commis- 
sion :  "  Go  ye  and  make  learners  of  all  the  nations." 
The  "teachers"  are  frequently  mentioned  in  the 
New  Testament,  although  their  work  was  often 
combined  with  other  functions.     Possibly  the  epistle 


PLiLCB  OP  THE  MINISTER   IN   MODERN   LIFE      1 9 

to  the  Hebrews  is  an  example  of  their  expository 
and  reconciling  work,  dealing  with  mental  bewil- 
derment and  struggle,  and  constructing  a  bridge 
from  the  old  to  the  new.  The  great  addresses  in 
the  book  of  the  Acts,  uttered  by  Stephen  before 
his  martyrdom,  by  Paul  in  the  presence  of  Agrippa 
and  Felix,  and  on  Mars*  Hill,  are  at  the  farthest 
possible  remove  from  mere  exhortation.  They  are 
historical  expositions  and  illuminations,  taking  the 
hearers  at  their  own  level  of  knowledge  and  con- 
viction, and  lifting  them  step  by  step  into  the  vision 
and  conviction  of  the  speaker.  They  are  as  far  re- 
moved from  Demosthenes  as  the  Temple  of  Herod 
was  from  the  Parthenon.  But  under  the  influence  of 
Greek  rhetoric  there  entered  the  church  the  idea 
of  the  sermon  as  a  work  of  art,  and,  in  the  phrase 
of  Dr.  Hatch,  **  there  has  been  a  sophistical  element 
about  it  ever  since."  The  sermon  has  in  many 
regions  become  an  address  on  classical  models,  an 
end  in  itself  rather  than  a  tool  for  shaping  human 
life.  Now  the  church  must  return  to  its  original 
idea  of  an  ecclesia  docens,  and  so  train  its  ministers 
that  the  world  again  may  say:  "We  know  that  thou 
art  a  teacher  come  from  God." 

In  recovering  this  original  conception  of  the 
ministry  the  church  is  allying  with  itself  the  most 
powerful  forces  of  our  time.  Recent  advances  in 
civilization  have  consisted  chiefly  of  improvements 
in  education.    We  have  been  placing  all  institutions 


20  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

on  an  educational  basis.  We  have  perceived  that 
a  campaign  of  education  is  the  only  campaign  that 
cannot  fail.  The  great  tide  of  interest  in  education 
which  has  swept  over  the  modern  world  is  due  to 
our  modern  idea  of  life  as  a  growth  rather  than  the 
product  of  fiat,  and  as  capable  of  indefinite  modi- 
fication and  transformation  under  pressure.  This 
view  has  transformed  our  public  institutions.  A 
museum  is  no  longer  a  place  for  the  exhibition  of 
natural  curiosities,  but  a  place  for  the  instruction 
of  the  people  by  concrete  objects.  A  library  is  no 
more  a  storehouse  of  books,  but  a  place  of  study, 
research  and  training.  Our  Department  of  Agri- 
culture is  no  longer  an  office  for  gathering  and 
publishing  statistics;  it  is  a  missionary  board,  a 
teaching  body,  whose  lecturers  travel  through  the 
land  educating  farmers  to  broader  and  truer  views 
of  their  task.  Our  Young  People's  Societies  are 
all  undertaking  the  systematic  training  of  their 
members  in  Biblical  study,  in  church  history,  in 
methods  of  social  service.  Our  temperance  and 
missionary  organizations  all  have  an  educational 
department  which  is  frequently  the  core  of  the 
entire  endeavor.  Our  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association,  which  began  as  an  evangelistic  move- 
ment, and  which  still  includes  that  idea,  has  become 
in  the  public  mind  chiefly  identified  with  educa- 
tional activity  for  the  development  of  body,  mind 
and    heart.     Our   great   industrial   enterprises   are 


PLACE   OF  THE   MINISTER   IN   MODERN   LIFE     21 

often  forced  to  undertake  education,  and  one  of 
them  has  nearly  four  hundred  college  men  in  its 
own  training  school,  that  from  them  it  may  select 
the  most  promising  for  important  industrial  posi- 
tions. Eagerness  for  knowledge  with  a  view  to 
its  immediate  application  to  life  is  the  consuming 
desire  of  our  time.  Teaching  is  in  some  ways  the 
characteristic  activity  of  our  age.  For  this  the  larg- 
est buildings  are  erected,  the  greatest  endowments 
given,  the  largest  taxes  freely  levied.  The  nations 
have  come  to  perceive  that  all  industrial,  military 
and  intellectual  achievement  is  based  directly  on 
the  persistent  education  of  the  people. 

Now  the  church  in  its  fundamental  idea  has  an- 
ticipated precisely  this  attitude.  In  the  days  when 
in  Europe  the  church  was  ofl5cially  in  control  of 
all  human  affairs,  it  planted  Christian  schools  in 
every  land.  In  America  it  founded  nearly  all  our 
earliest  colleges.  The  mottoes  of  those  colleges  — 
Christo  et  Ecclesice,  Lux  ac  Veritas^  In  Deo  Spera- 
mus  —  show  clearly  the  spirit  in  which  they  were 
established.  But  the  chief  educational  work  of  the 
church  can  never  be  done  by  reaching  a  few  through 
formal  schools  and  curricula,  but  must  be  done  in 
and  through  its  regular  services  and  functions. 
If  the  aim  of  education  is  "preparation  for  complete 
living,"  and  the  aim  of  the  church  is  **that  the  man 
of  God  may  be  thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good 
works,"  then  the  church  is  fundamentally  an  educa- 


22  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

tional  institution,  and  the  minister  is  in  essence  a 
teacher  of  his  generation. 

In  this  conception  are  included  several  other 
ideals  that  are  often  made  prominent.  It  is  often 
said  that  the  great  work  of  the  church  is  inspira- 
tional, that  what  men  need  most  is  encouragement, 
uplift  and  inspiration  in  their  struggle  for  righteous- 
ness. But  how  is  the  church  to  convey  inspiration? 
By  physical  fervor  ?  By  emotional  ecstasy  ?  Surely 
not;  but  by  "manifestation  of  the  truth."  There 
is  no  other  such  energizing  influence  in  the  world 
as  the  simple  apprehension  of  the  truth.  The  church 
inspires  by  presentation  of  ideas  and  ideals.  The 
eternal  life  which  it  offers  is  simply  knowledge  of 
the  true  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  He  has  sent. 
By  the  slow  and  irresistible  processes  of  education 
the  church  is  to  introduce  these  ideas  into  the  hearts 
and  lives  of  men. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  church  is  mainly 
a  means  of  rescue,  a  life-saving  station  on  a  dan- 
gerous coast,  whose  only  mission  is  to  deliver  ship- 
wrecked sailors  from  impending  death.  Surely 
every  church,  like  every  school,  must  be  able  to 
perform  the  work  of  rescue,  must  be  ready  at  all 
hazards  to  plunge  into  the  surges  of  poverty  and 
vice  and  crime  and  bring  out  of  despair  the  lost 
soul.  But  to  make  this  violent  and  catastrophic 
experience  the  norm  and  model  of  all  Christian 
endeavor  is   to  do  violence  to  the  essence  of  the 


PLACE   OP   THE   MINISTER   IN   MODERN   LIPE     23 

Christian  faith.  To  a  church  that  is  merely  a  rescue 
station,  all  St.  PauPs  epistles  must  be  unintelligible, 
since  they  are  marked  by  the  almost  entire  absence 
of  any  counsel  to  rescue  individuals.  The  writer 
seems  absorbed  in  the  great  task  of  instructing  the 
church  in  truth  and  duty.  He  conceives  the  church 
not  so  much  as  a  life-boat  to  rescue  the  few,  as  a 
lighthouse  to  guide  the  many,  —  "Ye  shine  as  lights 
in  the  world."  The  mission  of  our  Lord  was  evi- 
dently not  to  win  the  largest  possible  number  of 
individual  disciples,  —  after  his  death  the  number 
assembled  in  Jerusalem  was  only  "about  a  hundred 
and  twenty,"  —  not  to  heal  the  greatest  possible 
number  of  the  sick,  —  his  recorded  miracles  are 
less  than  forty,  —  but  to  implant  in  the  world  a  new 
ideal  of  true  life  and  make  that  ideal  germinant 
and  irresistible.  Those  who  hated  him  hated  his 
ideal  and  spumed  it;  those  who  followed  him  were 
in  love  with  his  ideal,  and  loved  him  with  passionate 
and  deathless  devotion  because  he  incarnated  that 
ideal,  and  was  what  he  taught  men  to  be.  The 
powers  of  the  priest  to  intercede,  of  the  magistrate  to 
enforce,  and  of  the  speaker  to  convince  and  inspire 
were  all  included  in  the  power  of  the  teacher  who 
came  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth. 

But  what  is  the  minister  to  teach?  Does  not  this 
conception  of  the  teaching  function  as  supreme 
lead  us  back  to  the  old  didactic  and  scholastic 
methods  from  which  we  have  happily  escaped? 


24  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

Does  it  not  mean  the  substitution  of  the  essay  for 
the  sermon,  the  exaltation  of  the  doctrinal  above 
the  practical,  and  the  enthronement  of  dogma  over 
life?  It  is  to  avoid  this  very  misconstruction  that 
we  prefer  to  speak  of  the  ''educational  ideal,"  rather 
than  the  "teaching  function,"  of  the  ministry.  If 
the  pulpit  is  to  become  merely  an  echo  of  the  pro- 
fessor's chair,  if  the  gospel  is  to  become  mere  diluted 
sociology  or  literary  criticism,  if  the  minister  is  to 
be  a  mere  pedagogue,  then  indeed  the  ministry  is 
robbed  of  its  power  and  the  church  will  become  an 
appendage  of  the  college.  To  return  to  the  doctri- 
nal sermons  of  early  New  England,  to  make  religion 
a  mere  course  of  lessons  in  theology,  and  offer  dog- 
matism in  place  of  devotion  is  not  the  path  of  progress 
to-day.  While  the  knowledge  of  facts  is  impor- 
tant in  religious  education,  the  supremely  important 
elements  are  ideals,  standards  and  values.  The 
great  task  of  the  minister  is  to  give  the  people  an 
abiding  sense  of  moral  and  spiritual  values,  to  make 
them  realize  what  is  worth  while.  It  is  to  give  them 
some  dominating  conception  of  life  and  its  meaning. 
It  is  to  furnish  some  general  standards  that  may 
reconcile  and  unify  the  scattered  and  conflicting 
insights  of  our  complex  and  hurried  civilization. 
It  is  to  lift  men  to  some  mount  of  vision  from  which 
they  may  "see  life  steadily  and  see  it  whole."  It 
is  to  give  men  some  general  conceptions  on  which 
they  may  string  the  beads  of  particular  and  isolated 
experiences. 


PLACE  OP  THE   MINISTER   IN   MODERN   LIFE     2$ 

For  example,  how  shall  men  conceive  God? 
Shall  they  think  of  Him  as  the  Jehovah  of  the  Old 
Testament  who  cried,  "I,  the  Lord  thy  God,  am 
a  jealous  God,"  or  with  the  apostle  John  as  "light 
in  whom  is  no  darkness  at  all"?  Shall  they  think 
of  him  with  Omar  Khayam  as  **  Master  of  the  Show," 
or  with  Spinoza  as  substance,  or  with  Mohammed 
as  irrevocable  decree,  or  with  John  Fiske  in  his 
boyhood,  as  a  venerable  man  writing  in  a  celestial 
ledger,  or  with  Tennyson  as  "closer  than  breathing, 
nearer  than  hands  and  feet"?  How  shall  they 
think  of  society,  —  as  a  collection  of  individuals 
whose  highest  law  is  laissez-faire ^  or  as  an  organism 
whose  supreme  law  is :  "  Now  are  we  many  members, 
yet  one  body  "  ?  How  shall  they  think  of  Christianity 
—  as  "a  form  of  rent  paid  to  God,"  as  insurance 
against  the  perils  of  another  world,  as  a  series  of 
logically  defensible  propositions,  or  as  simply  an 
attitude  toward  God  and  man?  How  shall  they 
think  of  the  moral  law  —  as  an  arbitrary  enact- 
ment enforced  by  Sinaitic  thunders,  or  as  a  revela- 
tion of  what  God  is  and  man  may  become?  How 
shall  they  think  of  life  —  as  probation,  or  education, 
or  both?  Shall  men  conceive  of  the  salvation 
offered  in  the  gospel  mainly  under  forensic  or  un- 
der personal  analogies  ?  What  shall  be  our  attitude 
toward  modem  culture,  toward  science,  literature 
and  art?  Shall  we  fear  these  things  as  hostile  to 
the  highest  life,  or  ignore  them  as  irrelevant  to  the 


26  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

Kingdom  of  God,  or  find  larger  place  for  them  in  our 
time  than  did  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament 
in  their  time?  What  shall  be  our  attitude  toward 
the  spirit  of  inquiry  and  research  now  dominant  in 
education?  Is  this  the  latest  manifestation  of  the 
mocking  "spirit  that  denies,"  or  is  the  utterance 
of  the  Zeitgeist  a  true  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost? 
Shall  we  shun  modem  scholarship  as  "knowledge 
that  puffeth  up,"  or  cultivate  the  attitude  of  Moses 
when  in  the  presence  of  disconcerting  novelty  he 
cried:  "I  will  now  turn  aside  and  see"?  What 
about  the  great  ethnic  faiths  with  which  trade  and 
diplomacy  and  immigration  are  bringing  us  into 
constantly  closer  contact?  Are  they  the  offspring 
of  deceit,  or  are  they  sincere  gropings  after  Him 
who  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us?  What  con- 
stitutes personal  success  in  life  —  is  it  self-culture, 
or  is  it  social  service  ?  Who  is  greatest  in  the  king- 
doms of  earth,  —  the  warrior,  the  captain  of  industry, 
the  missionary,  the  monk,  or  the  poet  ?  What  is  the 
Christian  view  of  competition  in  trade,  the  Christian 
view  of  the  duties  of  citizenship?  What  is  the 
Christian  attitude  toward  philanthropy,  toward 
commerce,  toward  warfare,  toward  the  exploitation 
of  half-civilized  or  savage  races?  To  sum  up  these 
questions  in  one :  What  sort  of  ideal  has  the  greatest 
moral  value,  and  what  kind  of  life  is  most  worth 
while? 
The  answer  to  such  far-reaching  questions  is  not 


PLACE  OP  THE   MINISTER   IN   MODERN  LIPE      2/ 

to  be  given  by  dogmatic  deliverance  from  a  pulpit 
"just  three  feet  above  contradiction."  It  is  to  be 
found  by  carrying  the  people  patiently  through  the 
process  of  discipleship,  by  leading  them  in  their 
gropings  for  the  foundation  principles  of  the  moral 
life,  by  showing  them  the  outworking  of  true  and 
false  ideals  in  the  history  of  Israel,  in  the  story  of 
the  Christian  church,  and  in  the  rise  and  fall  of 
cities  and  empires.  The  creation  and  maintenance 
of  Christian  ideals  is  the  preacher's  function.  To 
show  what  those  ideals  are,  to  defend  them  against 
attack  and  substitution,  to  apply  them  to  the  rapidly 
changing  life  of  our  generation,  to  ingrain  them  in 
the  fibre  of  the  individual  and  the  nation  —  this  is 
the  inexhaustible  and  fascinating  task  of  the  modem 
minister.  It  can  be  achieved  not  through  liturgy 
alone,  or  by  mere  authority,  or  by  sermonic  brill- 
iance, but  by  the  slow,  silent,  irrevocable  processes 
of  Christian  education. 

Soon  after  Mr.  James  Bryce  came  to  this  country 
as  ambassador  from  Great  Britain,  he  said  in  a 
public  address:  "Who  are  your  poets?  That  is 
the  question  for  you.  Who  are  writing  your  songs 
or  stirring  your  hearts  —  or  isn't  your  heart  being 
stirred?  .  .  .  Each  generation  and  each  land 
should  have  its  own  poets  .  .  .  men  of  lofty  thought 
who  shall  dream  and  sing  for  it,  who  shall  gather 
up  its  tendencies,  and  formulate  its  ideals  and  voice 
its  spirit,  proclaiming  its  duties  and  awakening  its 


28  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

enthusiasm  through  the  high  authority  of  the  poet 
and  the  art  of  his  verse."  With  few  changes  these 
words  would  accurately  describe  the  minister's 
mission.  To  "dream"  and  "stir"  and  "formulate" 
and  "voice"  and  "proclaim"  and  "awaken"  — 
these  are  the  unchanging  marks  of  true  ministration. 
And  this  work  is  to  be  accomplished  not  merely 
by  lyrical  overflow  in  hours  of  strong  emotion, 
but  by  continuous  and  progressive  effort.  The 
great  poets  have  been  among  the  chief  teachers 
of  the  race.  They  have  sung  because  they  have 
seen,  and  have  been  driven  to  re-interpret.  To 
summon  men  by  great  conceptions  of  their  origin 
and  destiny  and  duty  and  power,  to  view  all  daily 
drudgery  in  the  "light  that  never  was  on  sea  or 
land,"  to  reveal  all  human  action  sub  specie  aeter- 
nitatis  —  this  is  the  immortal  and  essential  work 
of  the  ministry. 

And  such  work  is  peculiarly  needed  in  our  age 
because  of  the  difficulty  our  generation  has  in  seeing 
the  whole  of  anything.  The  men  of  our  time  are 
absorbed  in  details.  The  speciahst  flourishes  — 
by  which  we  mean  the  man  who  neglects  the  for- 
est for  the  sake  of  the  trees.  Feeling  their  incom- 
petence for  the  great  syntheses  which  have  been 
rashly  made  in  the  past,  the  men  of  our  day  shrink 
from  generalization  or  from  any  large  view  of  life 
and  duty.  As  if  afraid  of  the  question  "Why?" 
they  bury  themselves  deep  in  answering  the  ques- 


PLACE   OF   THE    MINISTER   IN   MODERN   LIFE     29 

tion  "How?"  We  are  in  our  Wander jahreUy  rest- 
lessly journeying  with  little  assurance  of  arrival. 
Surrendering  all  theories  of  art,  men  now  minutely 
analyze  certain  artists  and  their  work.  Ignoring 
science  in  general,  they  devote  themselves  to  the 
study  of  the  spots  on  a  beede's  back  or  the  prop- 
erties of  nucleated  air  at  a  fixed  temperature. 
Giving  up  all  attempt  at  a  philosophy  of  music, 
men  spend  a  lifetime  in  mastering  a  single  in- 
strument. Despairing  of  finding  any  message  in 
English  literature,  men  count  the  color  epithets  in 
the  "Idylls  of  the  King,**  or  assiduously  labor  to 
expound  the  subtlest  allusion  in  **The  Ring  and 
the  Book." 

So  far  as  this  shrinking  from  the  whole  of  things 
springs  from  modesty  and  scientific  caution,  it  is 
admirable.  So  far  as  it  springs  from  mental  las- 
situde and  enfeeblement,  so  far  as  it  indicates  dis- 
sipated energies  and  distracted  minds  and  satis- 
faction with  the  partial  and  the  transient,  it  must 
be  met  by  the  great  calm  affirmations  of  seer  and 
prophet  and  teacher,  and  by  the  visions  and  im- 
peratives of  religious  faith.  An  age  of  specialism 
can  be  coordinated  and  unified  only  by  the  per- 
ception of  a  kingdom  of  ends,  which  is  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  It  is  the  prerogative  of  the  minister  to 
bring  back  into  a  generation  distraught  by  its  own 
knowledge,  and  bewildered  by  its  own  disintegra- 
tions, the  sense  of  the  unity  of  true  life,  the  sense 


30  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

of  the  beauty  of  the  ordered  world,  of  the  imperative- 
ness of  duty,  of  the  glory  of  sacrifice,  and  of  the  near- 
ness of  God/  The  fixed  ideas  of  a  people  are  of 
far  more  importance  than  any  particular  activities 
or  achievements.  The  total  amount  of  goods  manu- 
factured in  the  United  States  in  a  given  year  is 
a  matter  of  economic  importance.  But  infinitely 
more  important  is  the  attitude  of  the  national  spirit 
toward  such  ''goods."  Must  we  admit  that  "things 
are  in  the  saddle  and  ride  mankind,"  or  are  all 
goods  to  us  merely  the  instruments  of  noble  living? 
The  man  who  shapes  the  nation's  attitude  toward 
its  goods  is  rendering  far  greater  public  service  than 
any  manufacturer  possibly  could  do.  To  mould 
the  national  conception  of  the  purpose  of  life,  to 
uplift  the  ideal  of  social  and  civic  action,  to  give 
to  struggling  man  a  conception  of  goodness  which 
is  at  the  same  time  practicable  and  inexhaustible, 
—  this  is  to  meet  a  need  that  was  never  more  acute 
than  in  a  generation  which  often  seems  to  be  ''bound 
nowhere  under  full  sail." 

An  unusually  penetrating  observer  of  our  in- 
stitutions   and    tendencies  ^    has    recently    written : 

* "  The  mere  decomposition  of  the  world  has  not  satisfied  the 
deep  demand  for  an  inner  understanding  of  the  world;  the  dis- 
covery of  causal  laws  has  not  stilled  the  thirst  for  emotional  values. 
.  .  .  We  begin  to  remember  again,  what  naturalism  too  easily 
forgets,  that  the  interests  of  life  have  not  to  do  with  causes  and 
effects,  but  with  purposes  and  means." 

— Professor  Hugo  Munsterberg,  Psychology  and  Life,  p.  182. 

'Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  in  The  FtUure  in  America,  p.  154. 


PLACE  OF  THE   MINISTER    IN    MODERN   LIFE     3 1 

**The  American  has  yet  to  achieve  ...  the  con- 
ception of  a  whole  to  which  all  individual  acts  and 
happenings  are  subordinate  and  contributory.  .  .  . 
The  American  problem  is  preeminently  one  that 
must  be  met  by  broad  ways  of  thinking,  by  creative, 
synthetic  and  merging  ideas.  ...  It  is  one  chiefly 
moral  and  intellectual;  it  is  to  resolve  a  confusion 
of  purposes,  traditions,  habits,  into  a  common  or- 
dered intention."  This  is  the  same  problem  that 
Plato  faced  in  his  "  Republic,"  and  proposed  to  solve 
by  enthroning  Justice  in  the  soul  of  the  citizen  and 
in  the  government  of  the  state.  It  is  the  problem 
which  Augustine  sought  to  solve  in  his  vision  of 
the  City  of  God ;  the  problem  which  Dante  saw  so 
clearly  in  the  disrupted  Florence  of  his  time.  The 
solution  is  to  be  found,  as  all  the  deepest  thinkers 
of  the  world  have  told  us,  only  in  religion.  Only 
religious  faith  can  break  down  the  middle  walls 
of  partition,  partizan,  sectarian,  national,  racial, 
and  fuse  the  jarring  elements  of  human  life  into 
a  harmonious  unity.  Only  the  conviction  that 
"  God's  in  his  heaven"  can  persuade  men  that  in  some 
deep  sense  "all's  right  with  the  world." 

In  the  same  line  is  the  increasing  demand  for 
standards  of  value  in  modem  life.  The  standards 
of  the  colonial  period  in  America,  often  limited  and 
inadequate,  have  largely  passed  away.  In  literature, 
art,  ethics,  law,  philanthropy  and  commerce,  we 
cannot  be  content  with  the  decisions  of  the  age 


32  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

of  Washington  and  Jefferson.  But  have  we  discov- 
ered standards  of  our  own?  *' While  electricity  and 
steam  have  bound  the  nations  of  the  earth  together," 
says  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  ''questions  of  knowl- 
edge and  of  belief  have  split  up  every  nation  into 
sects.  In  all  this  tumult  it  is  difficult  to  catch  the 
sound  of  the  dominant  note.  .  .  .  Standards  of 
worth  are  strangely  confused  and  at  times  even  their 
existence  is  denied."  ^ 

Now  Christianity  comes  to  this  varied,  confused, 
and  flowing  world  with  certain  definite  standards  of 
moral  judgment.  It  does  not  proclaim  the  moral 
equality  of  men  or  of  deeds.  It  declines  to  blink 
or  blur  fundamental  divergencies  of  character  and 
conduct.  It  does  not  say  that  all  men  in  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven  are  to  be  equally  great,  but  it  lays 
down  a  new  standard  of  greatness.  It  appeals 
from  all  the  provincial  extempore  judgments  of 
to-day  to  the  eternal  verdict  of  the  unseen  Judge. 
It  stands  undazzled  by  power  or  wealth  or  earthly 
glory,  undismayed  by  charges  of  pietism  or  "other- 
worldliness,"  to  affirm  that  what  Christ  lived  for 
in  the  small  Syrian  province  is  the  supreme  goal 
of  all  human  life ;  that  what  he  loved  all  men  should 
love  unswervingly,  and  what  he  hated  all  men  should 
hate  forever.  It  affirms  that  just  as  a  small  break 
in  the  clouds  at  a  single  point  shows  us  the  blue 
that  overarches  the  world,  so  through  the  narrow 

^  The  Meaning  of  Education,  p.  40. 


PLACE  OF  THE   MINISTER   IN   MODERN   LIFE     33 

aperture  of  the  Galilean  life  we  may  get  a  glimpse 
of  the  spiritual  firmament  that  overspreads  all 
human  action  with  its  store  of  infinite  energy  and 
its  expanse  of  infinite  calm.  It  affirms  with  Matthew 
Arnold  that  we  might  ''as  well  imagine  a  man  with 
a  sense  for  sculpture  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help 
of  the  remains  of  the  Greek  art,  or  a  man  with  a 
sense  for  poetry  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help  of 
Homer  and  Shakespeare,  as  a  man  with  a  sense 
for  conduct  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help  of  the 
Bible." 

The  Christian  minister  comes  to  the  world,  not 
with  a  set  of  ready-made  rules,  but  with  certain 
standards  of  value  which  had  their  origin  in  the 
consciousness  of  Christ.  That  sinless  conscious- 
ness is  the  fountain-head  of  our  faith  and  our  morals. 
We  can  no  more  get  beyond  Jesus  than  we  can  sail 
past  the  North  Star.  Whole  chapters  of  Aristode 
are  out  of  date.  Some  sections  of  "Paradise  Lost" 
now  seem  unworthy  of  the  writer  and  unmeaning 
to  the  reader.  But  just  as  the  sense  of  beauty 
culminated  in  Greece  some  twenty-three  centuries 
ago,  so  that  all  our  artists  bend  in  admiration  over 
a  poor  fragment  of  the  Elgin  marbles,  so  the  reve- 
lation of  ethical  standards  culminated  in  Palestine. 
The  Parthenon,  battered  and  crumbling,  shows  us 
a  building  beyond  which  architecture  may  not  go. 
We  may  build  something  different  —  something 
more  nearly  perfect  no  man  hopes  to  build.     So 


34  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

character  reached  its  supreme  embodiment  and 
standard  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  We  desire  no  new 
edition  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  no  modifi- 
cation of  the  Golden  Rule.  We  can  easily  surpass 
Jesus  in  the  length  of  his  life,  or  the  quantity  of 
his  labor,  or  in  the  amount  of  his  human  knowledge. 
In  quality  and  revealing  power  he  is  unsurpassable 
and  final.  Different  men  there  may  be  and  should 
be;  but  in  the  realm  of  character  and  religion  a 
greater  master  and  leader  the  world  will  never  see. 
If  with  Emerson  we  still  say : 

"Earth  proudly  wears  the  Parthenon, 
As  the  best  gem  upon  her  zone ; " 

we  must  also  say  with  Robert  Browning: 

"That  one  face,  far  from  vanish,  rather  grows, 
Becomes  my  universe  that  feels  and  knows." 

We  indeed  must  traverse  many  realms  in  art  and 
science  and  industry  and  politics  where  Jesus  could 
not  enter.  We  must  solve  many  problems  of 
economics  and  militarism  and  diplomacy  that  he 
never  faced.  We  must  battle  with  diseases  and 
vices  and  ingenuities  of  evil  such  as  the  first  century 
could  not  know.  But  the  roots  of  character,  per- 
sonal and  national,  remain  unchanged.  The  answer 
to  the  novel  and  often  appalling  problems  that  con- 
front us  demands  ever  new  knowledge,  but  not  a 
new  attitude  toward  good  and  evil.  The  question : 
"Who  is  my  neighbor?"  must  be  answered  in  the 


PLACE   OF  THE   MINISTER   IN    MODERN   LIFE     35 

twentieth  century  by  a  new  definition  of  neighbor, 
but  not  by  a  new  kind  of  love  for  him.  The  "  woe 
unto  you,  hypocrites,"  loses  none  of  its  pertinency 
and  smiting  power  when  the  "chief  seats  in  the  syn- 
agogue" are  exchanged  for  a  rented  pew  in  a  Gothic 
church,  and  the  "devouring  of  widows*  houses"  is 
accomplished  by  the  manipulation  of  stocks.  The 
parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan  we  might  indeed 
re-edit,  substituting  modem  materia  medica  in  place 
of  oil  and  wine,  the  ambulance  in  place  of  the  humble 
beast,  the  hospital  in  place  of  the  inn,  and  princely 
endowments  instead  of  two  pence.  But  the  mental 
and  moral  attitude  of  the  Samaritan  toward  the 
victim  of  individual  greed  and  social  laxity  remains 
as  clearly  imperative  as  when  Jesus  said,  "  Go  thou 
and  do  likewise." 

A  recent  writer  curiously  maintains  that  the  ethics 
of  Jesus  is  insufficient  because  he  omits  to  say 
anything  about  "municipal  sanitation"!  We  may 
well  be  thankful  that  in  our  Lord's  teaching  is 
nothing  about  the  external  and  mechanical,  noth- 
ing about  water  supply  and  drainage  and  charity 
organization,  that  he  touches  with  sovereign  power 
the  springs  of  life,  not  its  transient  appliances  and 
methods.  He  opens  the  fountain  and  leaves  others 
to  build  aqueducts  and  convey  the  stream.  Even 
in  the  realms  of  science  and  art,  on  which  Christ 
never  touched,  and  which  have  become  almost 
central  in  modem  life,  the  fundamental  virtues  are 


36         EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

the  same,  the  meaning  of  success  and  failure,  of 
selfishness  and  service,  are  the  same  as  in  all  other 
departments  of  human  life.  The  seven  lamps  of 
architecture  are  lighted  from  the  same  source  as 
the  seven-branched  candlestick  of  the  Apocalypse. 
The  cry,  ''Art  for  art's  sake,"  is  misleading,  be- 
cause it  is  an  attempt  to  set  up  a  provincial  standard 
of  judgment  in  the  studio  or  the  art  gallery,  and 
exempt  one  form  of  human  activity  from  the  uni- 
versality of  the  Christian  ideal.  The  answering 
cry,  "Art  for  life's  sake,"  affirms  that  the  most 
scintillating  genius  is  still  a  divine  gift,  held  in  trust 
for  all  humanity,  and  hence  under  the  sway  of 
the  eternal  law.  Truth,  purity,  righteousness,  joy, 
rise  above  both  Hebraism  and  Hellenism,  they 
know  no  latitude  or  longitude.  He  who  has  of  all 
our  race  most  completely  embodied  these  permanent 
and  essential  qualities  is  therefore  an  abiding  figure 
in  the  life  of  the  world,  and  to  translate  his  attitude 
and  transfuse  his  quality  into  the  language  and 
character  of  each  succeeding  generation  becomes 
a  supremely  important  task. 

This  sense  of  the  value  of  Christ  and  his  standards 
is  not  to  be  confounded  with  any  particular  meta- 
physical construction  of  his  existence  or  origin. 
Such  a  construction  follows,  not  precedes,  the  sense 
of  value,  and  is  the  effect,  not  the  cause,  of  our  alle- 
giance. We  may  affirm  —  I  believe  we  must  affirm 
—  that  the  uniqueness  of  Christ's  character  and 


PLACE   OP  THE   MINISTER   IN   MODERN   LIFE     3/ 

influence  involves  a  uniqueness  of  personality.  We 
may  say,  if  we  will,  that  the  definition  of  Christ  which 
is  found  in  the  great  historic  creeds  is  simply  the 
homage  we  pay  to  his  character  rendered  into  terms 
of  our  philosophy.  But  this  philosophic  explana- 
tion of  Christ  is  not  the  primary  function  of  the 
minister.  His  function  is  to  apprehend  and  in- 
terpret the  great  ideals  and  standards  which  are  the 
gift  of  Christ  to  the  world.  Possessing  those  stand- 
ards and  with  power  to  unfold  and  apply  them, 
he  is  a  man  essential  to  all  institutions  and  move- 
ments and  causes  in  the  modem  world.  The  seer 
is  more  needful  in  life  than  even  the  doer.  Where 
there  is  no  vision,  the  people  perish.  The  world  can 
do  without  the  warrior,  the  manufacturer,  the  builder 
of  warehouses  and  railroads,  much  sooner  than 
without  the  man  who  conserves  and  expounds  its 
ideals.  It  can  exist  without  much  goods  laid  up 
for  many  years,  but  not  without  the  supreme  good 
which  it  is  the  minister's  function  to  make  real  and 
vivid.  If  he  comes  to  his  fellow-men  with  the  as- 
surance of  the  prophet  and  the  patience  of  the  edu- 
cator, he  may  easily  be  the  most  useful  man  of  his 
generation.  He  shapes  all  human  life  after  the 
pattern  in  the  mount.  He  has  not  the  satisfaction 
of  the  architect  who  sees  his  ideals  fixed  in  granite 
or  marble.  He  cannot  share  the  pleasure  of  the 
engineer  who  sees  his  innermost  thought  rendered 
in  the  tunnel  or  viaduct  of  steel.    But  he  sees  his 


38  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

message  written  on  the  souls  of  men  and  trans- 
lated into  careers  of  unselfish  and  loyal  service. 
He  sees  through  slow-moving  years  his  pupils 
growing  in  power  to  interpret  in  their  own  lives 
the  mind  of  Christ  and  so  to  share  in  the  life  of  God. 
While  others  reap  more  external  and  visible  rewards, 
he  partakes  of  the  divine  joy  of  moral  creation,  and 
shares  in  the  great  primeval  purpose,  "Let  us  make 
man!" 


n 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS 
TOWARD  NEW  TRUTH 


"Quisquis  bonus  venisque  Christian  us  est,  Domini  sui 
intelligat,  ubicumque  invenerit  veritatem."  —  Augustine. 

"I  was  brought  up  to  distrust  and  dislike  liberty;  I  learned 
to  believe  in  it.    That  is  the  key  to  all  my  changes." 

—  Gladstone. 


LECTURE   n 

THE    ATTITUDE    OF    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  TOWARD 
NEW  TRUTH 

A  YOUNG  minister  now  in  his  first  pastorate  re- 
cently wrote  me:  "I  am  preaching  a  series  of  ser- 
mons on  the  narratives  in  the  book  of  Genesis. 
But  I  am  appalled  at  the  problems  presented  by  an 
ungraded  congregation.  How  is  it  possible  to  adapt 
my  exposition  to  the  young  man  just  home  from 
college,  and  also  to  his  father  who  has  not  opened 
a  book  for  twenty  years?  How  can  I  reach  the 
restless  mind  of  the  keen  young  critic  in  the  front 
pew,  and  the  devout  and  mystic  temper  of  the  aged 
saint  behind  him?     Is  not  the  problem  insoluble?" 

At  another  place  I  hope  to  show  that  some  grad- 
ing of  the  modem  congregation  is  possible.  Mean- 
while let  us  note  that  the  finest  appeals  in  the  realm 
of  religion,  literature,  or  art  have  never  been  ad- 
dressed to  a  class,  but  to  humanity  as  a  whole. 
The  great  leaders  of  the  world  have  boldly  struck 
the  note  of  universality.  They  have  never  been 
content  to  be  private  chaplains  to  a  coterie,  or  limit 
their  ministry  to  a  group  of  selected  spirits.  They 
have  declined  to  deliver  a  provincial  message  ap- 
plicable only  to  men  of  a  certain  grade  or  type,  and 

41 


42  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN  THE   MINISTRY 

have  spoken  confidently  to  the  passions  and  hungers 
that  are  in  the  heart  of  all  men  everywhere.  Shake- 
speare's greatness  is  that  he  holds  captive  philosopher 
and  merchant  and  schoolboy.  Millet's  "Angelus" 
speaks  not  only  to  connoisseurs,  but  to  the  farmer's 
boy  and  the  labor  union.  Walter  Scott  did  not 
write  for  Scotland  only,  but  for  Europe  and  America. 
The  great  preacher  is  not  the  one  who  can  preach 
on  some  special  occasion  to  a  company  selected 
from  a  single  grade  of  culture,  but  one  who  strikes 
notes  so  fundamental  as  to  wake  vibrations  in  every 
human  soul.  What  minister  does  not  long  at  times 
for  a  congregation  so  homogeneous  in  experience 
and  training  that  he  can  address  them  as  a  group 
standing  on  the  same  round  of  life's  ladder?  Yet 
whoever  has  attempted  to  address  a  graded  assembly, 
as,  for  example,  an  assembly  of  college  students, 
finds  another  set  of  difficulties  confronting  him. 
Such  a  congregation  is  immensely  inspiring,  but  is 
subject  to  swift  reactions  and  changes  of  mood. 
It  swings  at  once  and  altogether  to  the  preacher's 
side,  or  it  turns  from  him  with  ruthless  indifference. 
It  is  like  a  vessel  with  a  shifting  cargo,  and  liable 
to  lurch  at  unexpected  moments  with  results  both 
tragic  and  comic.  It  lacks  the  solid  and  staying 
qualities  of  a  diversified  congregation  in  which  all 
the  interests  of  human  life  are  represented.  But 
a  preacher  addressing  a  varied  and  heterogeneous 
assembly,  discerning  beneath  their  superficial  dif- 


THE   ATTITUDE  TOWARD   NEW  TRUTH  43 

ferences  their  fundamental  need,  becomes  himself 
a  profound  reconciling  force  in  the  community. 
In  an  age  of  specialism,  when  men's  daily  tasks 
lie  far  asunder,  and  mutual  misconstruction  is  easy, 
the  preacher  stands  for  a  need  common  to  all  human 
beings  and  a  satisfaction  that  all  may  enjoy.  By 
steadily  addressing  men,  not  as  journalists  or 
carpenters  or  teachers  or  clerks,  but  as  human, 
the  minister  becomes  a  mediating  and  unifying 
power  in  the  community,  all  the  greater  because 
often   unrecognized. 

There  is  probably  no  greater  joy  that  a  leader 
of  men  can  know  than  thus  to  rise  above  all  the 
idiosyncrasies  and  particularisms  of  an  assembly, 
and  grapple  with  the  essential  and  permanent  in 
human  nature.  Many  a  preacher  who  is  ill  at  ease 
in  personal  intercourse,  embarrassed  in  giving  advice 
to  a  young  man  or  woman,  and  an  utter  failure 
in  a  drawing-room,  rises  to  face  a  heterogeneous 
congregation  "attired  with  sudden  brightness,  like 
a  man  inspired."  The  petty  peculiarities  of  his 
neighbors  he  has  forgotten;  the  provincialisms 
that  bored  or  annoyed  him  in  his  best  friends  have 
dropped  out  of  sight;  and  he  steps  into  the  pulpit 
as  the  commander  of  a  naval  squadron  hoists  the 
signal  summoning  a  whole  fleet  into  action,  rejoic- 
ing that  all  trivial  dififerences  have  vanished  in  the 
presence  of  the  essential  and  compelling  need. 
Under  such  circumstances  the  preacher  enters  into 


44  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

a  memorable  experience,  which  is  psychologically 
the  best  possible  commentary  on  the  pentecostal 
narrative.  He  is  lifted  out  of  his  hampering  limi- 
tations; he  no  longer  watches  his  own  shadow; 
he  has  forgotten  how  or  when  the  message  was 
prepared.  All  that  is  local  and  temporary  is  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  consciousness  that  at  that  moment 
and  in  that  place  the  divine  fulness  and  the  human 
emptiness  are  coming  together,  and  this  through 
the  preacher's  message.  Again,  the  ancient  miracle 
is  repeated,  and  out  of  the  motley  multitude  each 
man  hears  the  message  in  his  own  tongue  wherein 
he  was  bom.  No  political  orator  addressing  men 
of  one  party,  no  university  professor  addressing 
a  select  group,  can  experience  the  inexpressible 
joy  which  comes  to  the  preacher  who  sees  before 
him  only  humanity  stripped  of  all  its  accidents, 
and  pours  into  it  a  gospel  stripped  of  all  save  the 
divine  and  eternal  message.  If  ever  on  earth  it 
is  given  to  man  to  attain  a  sense  of  union  with  the 
infinite,  it  is  given  to  the  preacher  under  such 
conditions. 

But  no  less  important  is  the  minister's  mediation 
between  successive  generations,  his  work  in  turning 
"the  hearts  of  the  fathers  to  the  children."  The 
vast  inrush  of  new  knowledge  in  the  last  fifty  or 
seventy-five  years  has  brought  with  it  peculiar 
opportunities  and  peculiar  perils.  Probably  more 
new  facts  regarding  the  physical  world  have  been 


THE   ATTITUDE  TOWARD   NEW  TRUTH  4$ 

discovered  during  the  last  seventy-five  years  than 
during  the  previous  seventy-five  hundred  years. 
Alfred  Russell  Wallace  computes  that  thirteen 
great  inventions  or  discoveries  were  made  during 
the  nineteenth  century,  and  only  seven  in  all  the 
centuries  before.  Thirteen  inventions  —  such  as 
the  steamboat,  the  electric  light,  the  telephone 
—  in  the  last  century,  and  only  seven  —  such  as 
the  mariner's  compass,  the  printing-press,  and  the 
barometer  —  in  all  the  previous  story  of  humanity  I 
Cicero  used  essentially  the  same  sort  of  lamp  as 
Edmund  Burke,  and  Burke  the  same  as  Lincoln. 
But  since  Lincoln's  day  the  illumination  of  the  civil- 
ized world  has  been  transformed.  The  ship  in  which 
Paul  sailed  from  Caesarea  to  Rome  was  built  on 
the  same  plan  and  propelled  in  the  same  way  as 
that  which  brought  Lafayette  to  America  or  carried 
Franklin  to  France.  But  since  Franklin's  day 
ocean  travel  has  been  as  truly  transfigured  as  if 
the  Atlantic  had  evaporated  to  one-tenth  its  former 
size.  Even  a  century  ago  the  transmission  of 
news  was  so  slow  that  Andrew  Jackson  cap- 
tured New  Orleans  after  peace  had  been  de- 
clared between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain, 
not  having  heard  that  the  war  was  over.  To-day 
a  speech  delivered  in  the  English  House  of  Com- 
mons may  be  reported  and  printed  in  America  some 
hours,  by  the  clock,  before  its  actual  delivery. 
This  enormous  advance  in  knowledge,  theoretical 


46  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

and  applied,  has  worked  vast  changes  in  man's 
attitude  toward  the  universe  and  toward  his  fellow- 
men.  The  mere  fact  that  men  know  more  things 
than  once  they  did  is  not  significant.  The  fact 
that  the  flooding  tide  of  knowledge  has  swept  mil- 
lions of  men  from  their  old  moorings  is  of  immense 
significance  for  the  preacher.  Each  new  fact  must 
be  correlated  with  and  built  into  the  mass  of  previous 
fact  in  human  possession.  Our  generation  has  been 
like  a  child  that,  having  patiently  put  together 
the  many  blocks  of  a  "dissected  map,"  then  dis- 
covers on  the  floor  another  piece  which  should  have 
gone  in  somewhere,  and  for  which  he  must  make 
room  by  beginning  all  over  again.  Only,  in  the 
vast  cooperative  Lebensanschauung  that  humanity 
is  ever  constructing,  we  have  recently  discovered 
millions  of  new  pieces;  and  the  result  is  a  degree 
of  bewilderment  and  dismay  such  as  the  world  has 
not  seen  since  Copernicus  took  the  earth  out  of  the 
centre  of  the  sky  and  transferred  it  to  a  remote  and 
obscure  position.  We  have  undergone,  and  must 
undergo  for  years  to  come,  a  general  disturbance 
of  social  and  ethical  values.  What  if  some  of  the 
new  facts  that  must  be  incorporated  in  our  map  of 
life  make  certain  old  facts  seem  irrelevant  or  even 
untrue?  What  if  the  new  facts  in  anthropology 
pour  a  wholly  new  light  on  the  moral  code?  Was 
monogamy  the  primitive  form  of  marriage,  as  once 
we  thought?    Is  the  keeping  of  a  Sabbath  essential 


THE   ATTITUDE  TOWARD   NEW  TRUTH  47 

to  the  progress  of  humanity,  or  have  some  non- 
Semitic  races  prospered  without  it?  If  the  Baby- 
lonian account  of  creation  is  largely  similar  to  that 
of  Genesis,  what  becomes  of  the  uniqueness  of  the 
Bible?  "What  becomes  of?"  — yes,  that  is  the 
characteristic  question  of  our  time. 

Another  consequence  of  this  new  knowledge  is  a 
new  and  unprecedented  separation  between  parents 
and  children.  Never  were  two  generations  parted 
by  so  great  an  interval.  Even  in  Germany,  where 
a  kind  of  military  subjection  of  children  to  parents 
has  long  prevailed,  we  hear  of  a  general  youthful 
revolt  against  the  family  authority.  In  this  country 
the  serious  phenomenon  is  not  so  much  a  revolt 
against  authority,  as  a  separation  of  interests, 
a  complete  divergence  of  world-view,  between  the 
mature  men  and  women  on  the  one  side  and  the 
young  people  on  the  other.  Most  of  the  moral 
breakdowns  in  college  life  to-day  are  due  in  part 
to  a  fatal  lack  of  understanding  between  the  father 
and  the  son.  Frequently  a  man  of  the  highest 
character  in  the  community  dreads  to  be  left  alone 
for  an  evening  with  his  own  boy.  He  has  failed  to 
be  the  companion  of  his  son,  and  so  has  failed 
to  be  educated  through  his  parenthood.  He  has 
dropped  out  of  step  with  the  swiftly  marching 
generation.  He  cannot  comprehend  the  point  of 
view  of  the  young  people.  They  speak  a  different 
vocabulary   from   that   in   which   he   was   trained. 


48  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

They  indulge  freely  in  certain  recreations  from 
which  he  was  debarred  or  for  which  he  has  no  taste; 
and  on  the  other  hand  certain  business  practices, 
on  which  his  success  was  built,  the  young  people 
begin  to  suspect  and  condemn.  The  mature  man, 
if  he  strays  by  accident  into  their  company,  feels 
himself  an  embarrassed  alien.  Their  view  of  out- 
door sports,  their  indoor  occupations,  their  idea 
of  what  is  worth  while,  their  estimate  of  art  and 
poetry  and  success  and  happiness,  has  been  subtly 
affected,  as  vegetation  on  the  shore  is  affected  by 
the  noiseless  approach  of  the  Gulf  Stream.  We 
sometimes  speak  of  this  change  as  if  it  were  an 
isolated  problem  of  family  life,  to  be  solved  by 
fresh  assumption  of  parental  control.  It  is  really 
part  of  the  change  of  universal  climate  to  which 
John  Fiske  alludes  when  he  speaks  of  the  men  of 
our  generation  as  ''separated  from  the  men  whose 
education  ended  in  1830  by  an  immeasurably  wider 
gulf  than  ever  before  divided  one  progressive  genera- 
tion from  their  predecessors."  ^ 

Now  what  has  historical  Christianity  usually 
done  in  such  eras  of  transition?  It  is  compelled 
either  to  set  itself  against  all  that  is  new,  as  of  the 
evil  one,  or  it  is  compelled  to  translate  its  essential 
message  into  the  thought-forms  of  the  age.  It 
must  either  resort  to  the  repressive  measures  of  the 
Index  and  the  Inquisition,  or  it  must  adopt  the 
method  of  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament. 

*  Cosmic  Philosophy,  Vol.  I,  p.  230. 


THE  ATTITUDE   TOWARD   NEW   TRUTH  49 

For  the  New  Testament  is  essentially  a  literature 
of  mediation.  It  is  an  attempt  to  make  a  startling 
and  abhorrent  truth  credible  and  even  welcome  to 
those  whose  whole  training  was  a  barrier  to  its 
acceptance.  Every  New  Testament  writer  is  con- 
scious that  he  has  to  proclaim  a  truth  repugnant 
to  the  powers  that  be,  and  make  it  seem  in  harmony 
with  old  institutions  and  ideals.  To  show  the  Jews 
that  the  Christ  they  slew  was  really  the  culmination 
of  their  heart's  desire;  to  show  the  Greeks  that 
a  Jewish  peasant  was  the  truth  which  all  their 
philosophers  had  vainly  sought  —  this  was  the  task 
of  the  apostles.  And  the  New  Testament  achieved 
this,  both  by  its  passionate  and  contagious  con- 
viction — "  We  have  seen  the  Lord  .  .  .  our 
hands  have  handled  the  word  of  life  ...  we 
were  with  him  in  the  holy  mount"  —  and  by  its 
patient  translation  of  the  new  teaching  into  familiar 
forms  of  thought.  For  to  translate  a  message  is 
not  merely  to  find  in  one  language  the  words  equiv- 
alent to  those  in  another;  it  is  to  find  equivalent 
idioms,  symbols,  values,  so  that  each  man  shall 
hear  the  truth  in  familiar  forms  of  his  own  home 
and  daily  life.  Christianity  in  the  vernacular  is 
Christianity  triumphant.  If  our  religion  has  only 
one  set  of  symbols,  it  must  be  a  local  cult,  rather 
than  a  universal  redemption.  The  New  Testament 
seized  the  dominant  conceptions  of  its  age  and 
poured  the  new  truth  into  them.     Did  the  Jews 


50  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

conceive  the  supreme  representative  of  their  nation 
to  be  the  High  Priest?  Very  well;  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth is  the  true  High  Priest  of  humanity,  making 
atonement  not  by  the  blood  of  beast  and  bird,  but 
(here  the  old  bottles  do  not  suffice  for  the  new  wine) 
by  the  offering  of  himself.  Did  the  Jews  expect  a 
speedy  consummation  of  the  age  in  dramatic  apoca- 
lypse?—  then  it  is  Christ  that  by  his  dread  voice 
shall  cause  the  dead  to  awake.  Did  the  Jews  have 
in  their  sacred  books  a  mysterious  Melchizedek  who 
came  and  went  as  if  let  down  from  heaven  and 
then  withdrawn  ?  —  then  Christ  is  another  Mel- 
chizedek without  father  or  mother.  Did  they  have 
a  curious  tradition  that  after  Moses  smote  the  rock 
in  the  wilderness  that  rock  followed  the  marching 
caravan  to  quench  their  daily  thirst?  With  swift 
translation  Paul  writes,  ''That  spiritual  rock  which 
followed  them  was  Christ."  Did  the  entire  Hebrew 
worship  find  its  centre  in  symbolic  sacrifices  by 
which  offended  deity  was  propitiated  ?  —  then  in 
every  address  to  the  Jews  the  apostle  Paul  will 
set  forth  Christ  under  the  symbols  of  altar  and 
mysterious  scapegoat  and  placating  ritual. 

But  when  writing  to  congregations  in  great  cities 
of  the  Roman  empire,  surrounded  by  the  daily 
spectacle  of  court  procedure  under  Roman  law, 
he  often  introduces  the  juridic  analogy  as  most 
helpful.  He  then  turns  easily  to  forensic  forms  of 
thought.    Humanity  is  at  the  bar  of  God,  Christ 


THE   ATTITUDE   TOWARD    NEW   TRUTH  $1 

is  the  advocate,  by  whose  victorious  pleading  and 
efficient  representation  men  may  be  acquitted,  jus- 
tified, and  their  iniquities  remembered  no  more. 
The  end  of  the  age  from  this  point  of  view  becomes 
a  grand  assize,  before  whose  mere  picture  on 
the  walls  of  the  Sistine  Chapel  Europe  has  quailed 
and  trembled  for  three  hundred  years. 

But  when  Paul  appears  on  Mars'  Hill  this  entire 
vocabulary  has  vanished.  He  has  no  word  regard- 
ing any  high  priest  or  any  allusion  to  forensic 
justification.  It  is  now  not  the  Mosaic  ritual  but 
the  Greek  poet  Aratus  that  furnishes  his  sym- 
bolism, —  **  for  we  are  also  his  offspring."  The 
God  of  his  Fathers,  whom  Paul  worshipped,  is  iden- 
tified with  the  nameless  deity  to  whom  the  Athenians 
had  erected  an  altar  in  the  public  square. 

And  after  the  apostolic  age  was  over,  the  process 
of  translation  into  terms  of  the  Greek  philosophy 
went  steadily  on.  It  was  impossible  for  Alexandria 
and  Antioch  and  Rome  to  conceive  the  new  doctrine 
as  if  those  cities  were  merely  suburbs  of  Jerusalem, 
or  as  if  every  Roman  citizen  had  been  brought  up 
on  the  Old  Testament.  Patiently  Christian  scholars 
labored  at  the  task  of  finding  in  the  current  thought 
of  their  own  age  some  worthy  symbols  of  the  Judean 
faith.  God  became  to  them  the  Absolute  and 
Infinite,  whose  attributes  could  be  reasoned  out 
and  catalogued.  Christ  became  —  as  indeed  he 
is  in  the  New  Testament  —  the  logoSf  at  once  the 


52  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

divine  reason  and  the  divine  utterance,  through 
whom  the  Absolute  is  revealed  in  time  and  space. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  attempt  to  solve 
modern  difficulties  through  a  restatement  of  the 
logos  doctrine  can  avail.  That  concept  was  used 
by  John  and  by  the  Greek  fathers  simply  because 
it  was  part  of  the  education  of  the  men  they  were 
trying  to  convince.^  But  when  we,  many  centuries 
later,  have  to  explain  with  much  difficulty  what  the 
logos  was  before  we  can  say  that  Christ  is  the  logos, 
we  are  impeding  faith  by  the  very  explanation  we 
offer. 

In  the  great  historic  creeds  we  come  against  such 
terms  as  ''substance,"  "person,"  "essence,"  "pro- 
cession," —  concepts  which  are  as  far  away  from  the 
atmosphere  of  the  four  gospels  as  the  Roman  curia 
is  from  Nazareth.  No  one  of  the  apostles  could  have 
understood  such  language.     Imagine  Simon  Peter, 

*  "  It  is  the  fashion  in  our  day  to  represent  older  dogma  as  a 
corruption  of  the  primitive  simplicity  of  Christian  faith  by  the 
admixture  of  a  foreign  substance,  namely,  Greek  philosophy. 
The  truth  is  just  the  reverse.  The  novel  element  in  the  compound 
was  not  philosophy,  but  the  gospel.  The  doctrine  of  the  logos 
and  all  that  it  implies  vi^as  the  common  assumption  of  the  culture 
of  the  time.  That  which  was  new  was  the  identification  of  the 
logos  with  Jesus  and  the  reinterpretation  of  God  which  this  re- 
quired. The  steps  which  led  to  the  formulation  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  are  the  steps  by  which  the  Christian  spirit  made 
for  itself  a  home  in  the  existing  intellectual  environment."  — 
Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  by  William  Adams  Brown,  p.  143. 
"The  Christian  spirit  making  for  itself  a  home"  is  a  summary  of 
all  Christian  theologies,  councils,  and  creeds. 


THE   ATTITUDE   TOWARD   NEW   TRUTH  53 

whose  compelling  creed  was,  "Thou  art  the  Christ, 
the  son  of  the  living  God,"  —  imagine  him  ponder- 
ing the  statement  in  the  symbol  of  Chalcedon  which 
afiirms  Christ  to  be  "acknowledged  in  two  natures, 
inconfusedly,  unchangeably,  invisibly,  inseparably, 
the  distinction  of  natures  being  by  no  means  taken 
away  by  the  union,  but  rather  the  property  of  each 
nature  being  preserved,  and  concurring  in  one 
Person  and  one  Subsistence"!  It  is  easy  for  us 
to  smile  at  such  definitions,  just  as  future  genera- 
tions may  make  sport  of  our  acrid  debate  over 
free  silver  or  interstate  commerce.  But  behind  the 
old  theological,  and  behind  the  modem  discussion 
are  tremendous  moral  issues.  Gibbon's  mirth 
at  the  slight  difference  between  homoousios  and 
honwiousios  is  not  justified.  The  real  question 
was  whether  in  Christ  we  have  a  veritable  revelation 
or  merely  an  unusually  noble  aspiration,  whether 
Christ  is  one  more  good  adviser,  or  is  Lord  and 
Master  of  the  spiritual  life  of  all  men.  Had  you 
and  I  been  at  Chalcedon,  as  children  of  that  age 
we  should  have  voted  for  homoousios  and  gone 
singing  to  the  stake  rather  than  give  up  that  central 
syllable. 

But  the  point  we  now  make  is  that,  true  or  false, 
the  historic  creeds  are  translations  of  Christ  and 
his  message  into  forms  of  thought  unintelligible  to 
Moses,  Isaiah,  and  Micah,  and  in  large  measure  for- 
eign to  the  Pauline  epistles.    The  creeds  may  be. 


54  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

if  you  please,  the  logical  outcome  of  the  epistles, 
the  inevitable  result  of  the  human  intellect  focussed 
on  the  gospel  material.  But  they  would  have  been 
largely  unmeaning  to  any  of  the  original  twelve 
apostles.  Indeed,  some  passages  in  those  creeds 
would  have  been  unmeaning  to  Christ  himself. 
Yet  whether  the  creeds  be  true  or  false,  they  are 
inevitable,  and  the  continuous  translation  of  the 
Christian  message  is  still  going  on.  We  have  yet 
to  do  for  the  Orient  what  Greek  Philosophy  did  for 
Europe.  The  followers  of  Buddha  and  Confucius 
can  never  enter  the  inner  secret  of  Judaism.  By 
what  right  do  we  demand  it  ?  The  Puritan  meeting- 
house in  the  Indian  jungle  is  not  more  anomalous 
than  the  Athanasian  creed  in  Calcutta.  Dr.  Charles 
Cuthbert  Hall,  after  a  year  in  India,  pungently 
wrote:  *'He  who,  confident  in  Western  tradition, 
ignores  the  differentia  of  Eastern  thinking,  and 
preaches  Christian  truth  to  the  subtle  students  of 
Allahabad  precisely  in  the  terms  to  be  employed 
at  Oxford  or  Harvard,  while  he  may  interest  a  few 
who  have  become  Europeanized  in  their  thinking, 
runs  the  risk  of  remaining  unintelligible  to  the 
many  whose  intellectual  presuppositions  have  almost 
nothing  in  common  with  his  own."  ^ 

Leaving  for  others  questions  as  to  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  Oriental  mind,  we  may  well  ask: 

^  Christian  Belief  interpreted  by  Christian  Experience,  Preface, 
p.  xvi. 


THE   ATTITUDE  TOWARD   NEW  TRUTH  55 

What  are  the  special  thought-forms  of  the  Western 
world  in  our  age?  What  is  the  new  world- view 
in  which  we  are  to  "find  a  home"  for  Christian 
faith? 

The  dominant  conception  of  our  age  is  the  idea 
of  the  world,  not  as  finished  product,  but  as  un- 
folding process.  How  easy  it  is  to  state  that  con- 
ception, and  how  immeasurably  difficult  to  grasp 
a  fraction  of  its  far-reaching  sequence!  The  car- 
penter theory  of  creation  has  gone  forever.  Instead 
of  a  world  neatly  finished  oflf  in  six  solar  days,  we 
have  a  world  still  in  the  throes  of  creation,  —  moun- 
tains rising,  seas  shifting,  earthquakes  rumbling,  stars 
falling,  new  species  arising,  and  man  just  beginning 
to  "  have  dominion  over  the  earth  and  subdue  it." 
Instead  of  a  history  which  is  as  a  small  stage,  whereon 
a  few  notable  figures  —  kings  and  queens  and 
apostles  and  prophets  —  have  their  exits  and  en- 
trances, we  now  dimly  perceive  a  vast  drama,  its 
origin  in  the  primeval  fire- mist  and  its  goal  some 
"far-off  divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation 
moves."  The  physical  world  is  no  longer  an  inert 
and  passive  mass,  to  be  fashioned  by  mind  —  it 
is  shot  through  with  mind  in  every  particle.  It  is 
kinetic,  palpitating  with  energy  in  every  atom.  The 
atom  itself  seems  as  if  it  were  a  mere  vortex  of  force, 
and  the  old  elements  we  thought  stable  and  eternal 
are  steadily  being  decomposed  into  more  fugitive 
and  ethereal  substance,  as  we  pursue  them  beyond 


56  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

the  borders  of  the  visible  world.  And  all  these 
mysterious  powers  and  forces  are  ceaselessly  in 
play,  evolving  new  forms  before  our  eyes.  New 
coast  lines  are  forming,  new  eruptions  burying  cities, 
new  species  of  plants  being  discovered  or  created, 
new  languages  arising,  new  civilizations  coming 
to  birth.  Astronomers  no  longer  care  to  speak  of 
the  "fixed  stars,"  for  they  know  that  the  ancient 
celestial  fixity  is  relative  and  apparent  only. 
Governments  are  seen  to  be  an  evolution,  nations 
to  have  their  youth  and  their  maturity  and  their 
decay,  and  the  whole  world  appears  in  ceaseless 
movement.  Indeed,  the  commune  vinculum  of  edu- 
cated men  to-day  consists  not  in  the  fact  that 
they  have  been  over  the  same  course  of  study,  but 
that  they  have  learned  to  look  on  the  whole  world 
of  nature,  art,  science,  philanthropy,  education, 
religion,  as  an  endless  unfolding  process.  That 
the  physical  world  is  not  a  mass  of  dead  material 
but  is  throbbing  with  force,  that  the  human 
world  of  institutions  and  laws  and  governments 
is  steadily  evolving  into  new  and  more  intricate 
patterns,  that  all  we  see  and  touch  is  growing  and 
cHmbing,  and  that  "in  to-day  already  walks  to- 
morrow"—  this  is  the  conception  which  makes  a 
man  intellectually  at  home  in  the  modern  world. 

Some  consequences  of  this  world- view  are  obvious. 
The  man  who  holds  it  no  longer  thinks  of  truth  as 
a  fixed  deposit,  but  as  an  ever  advancing  construe- 


THE   ATTITUDE   TOWARD   NEW  TRUTH  57 

don  of  reality.  He  looks  upon  the  creeds  not  as 
credenda  but  as  credita.  They  mark  how  far  the  tide 
has  risen,  but  they  do  not  make  the  tide  rise.  He 
thinks  of  society,  not  as  did  Plato  in  his  "  Republic," 
as  a  fixed  entity  to  which  the  individual  must  be 
adjusted,  but  as  an  organic  growth.  He  thinks  of 
teaching  not  as  the  handing  over  of  a  body  of  as- 
certained knowledge  from  teacher  to  pupil,  but 
as  a  process  in  which  teacher  and  pupil  climb  new 
heights  together.  He  thinks  of  theology  not  as 
static  and  stereotyped,  but  as  a  progressive  appre- 
hension of  the  divine  presence  in  the  world.  Even 
God  he  thinks  of  as  having  a  real  experience.  The 
most  precious  truths  of  Christianity  seem  to  him  not 
as  jewels  to  be  kept  in  a  casket,  but  as  seeds  to  be 
bravely  planted. 

Now  the  perils  of  this  point  of  view  are  obvious 
and  constant.  A  man  may  come  to  think  of  the 
world  as  ceaseless  and  meaningless  flux.  If  the 
fixed  stars  have  gone,  he  may  imagine  that  the  an- 
cient duties  and  virtues  have  gone  with  them.  He 
may  think  that  the  new  and  popular  thing  is  the 
true  thing.  The  historian  is  always  near  kin  to  the 
latitudinarian. 

But  perilous  or  not,  the  evolutionary  world-view 
is  the  characteristic  note  of  our  age.  It  is  the  tem- 
per of  the  generation  of  which  we  are  a  part  and 
in  which  we  must  speak  our  message.  To  use  the 
vocabulary    of    the   pre-Darwinian    era  —  whether 


58  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

Darwinism  be  true  or  false  does  not  concern  us  here 
—  is  to  use  a  dialect  not  found  in  any  popular  lit- 
erature to-day,  and  hence  fairly  unintelligible  to  the 
people.  Whenever  we  hear  a  preacher  speaking 
in  the  old  thought-forms  —  either  because  he  has 
become  aged  or  because  he  was  born  so  —  we  are 
somehow  conscious  of  a  chasm  between  speaker  and 
hearer.  It  is  not  that  we  disbelieve  what  he  says; 
but  that  his  whole  way  of  approaching  truth,  of 
testing  truth,  of  valuing  truth,  is  so  different  from 
ours  that  we  simply  cannot  follow  him.  He  defends 
the  truths  that  we  have  believed  all  our  lives,  in 
such  a  way  as  to  shake  our  faith  in  them.  He  places 
the  duties  we  have  been  performing  for  years  on 
a  basis  which  for  us  does  not  exist.  The  things 
which  separate  men  are  not  the  things  which  they 
affirm  or  deny,  but  the  things  which  they  take  for 
granted. 

It  is  of  course  easy  to  show  that  much  of  our 
modem  world-view  is  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Christ's  fundamental  metaphor  is  that  of  the 
seed.  If  in  some  places  he  speaks  of  an  imminent 
end  of  the  age,  he  also  says:  "After  a  long  time  the 
Lord  of  those  servants  cometh,"  and  he  expected 
the  leaven  to  remain  in  the  meal  "  till  the  whole  was 
leavened."  In  the  magnificent  outlook  to  which 
Paul  rises  in  some  of  his  epistles  he  sees  the  ages 
as  moving  toward  one  great  far-distant  goal.  He 
conceives  the  world,  not  as  a  cosmos,  or  arrange- 


THE   ATTITUDE  TOWARD   NEW  TRUTH  59 

ment  of  things  in  space,  but  as  an  (Bon^  an  age  or 
era,  a  definite  period  in  the  unfolding  of  a  dramatic 
history.  His  idea  of  faith  and  goodness  is  not  static 
but  dynamic.  As  Professor  Ramsay  says:  "The 
good  never  seems  to  occur  to  his  mind  as  a  mere 
quality,  but  as  a  law  of  progress.  .  .  .  The  world 
to  him  is  always  fluid  and  changing,  never  stationary. 
But  the  change  is  toward  an  end,  not  mere  flux 
without  law.'**  Indeed,  the  writings  of  Paul  are 
far  more  in  sympathy  with  the  ideas  of  progress 
which  dominate  our  time  than  with  the  mathemati- 
cal and  mechanical  conceptions  which  held  sway  in 
the  eighteenth  century.  But  whether  we  find  in  our 
New  Testament  the  conception  of  universal  growth 
or  not,  we  do  find  it  in  our  own  generation.  Such 
is  the  language  which  our  people  speak.  Such  is 
the  vocabulary  into  which  we  must  carry  the  Chris- 
tian message. 

But  another  dominant  conception,  already  hinted 
at,  is  even  more  obvious  —  that  of  universal  and 
invariable  law.  The  changes  which  are  in  progress 
around  us  and  within  us  are  not  mere  fortuitous 
happenings,  not  mere  "variations  of  cosmical 
weather,"  but  are  under  inevitable  and  universal 
law.  And  this  law,  of  which  our  generation  is  ever 
talking  and  thinking,  is  not  a  statute,  but  a  uniform 
sequence.    It   is   not   a   command   directing    that 

*  Professor  W.  M.  Ramsay,  Contemporary  Review^  October, 
1907. 

^    or  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

(^^ 


60  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

certain  phenomena  shall  occur,  but  is  a  uniform 
order  in  which  events  do  occur.  All  events  physical 
and  psychical,  all  tides  in  the  sea  and  in  the  soul,  all 
movements  whether  of  the  comets  or  of  the  nations, 
are  proceeding  according  to  a  definite  sequence. 
Thoughtful  men  of  our  generation  do  not  affirm 
any  mechanical  causation  in  the  psychical  realm. 
But  they  do  affirm  that  lawlessness  is  inconceivable 
anywhere  —  most  of  all  inconceivable  in  the  pro- 
cesses of  a  truly  rational  mind.  Chance  there  is 
none,  the  very  idea  is  self-contradictory.  Progress 
under  law  is  universal. 

This  conception  is  the  background  of  modem  life. 
It  is  the  subconscious  note  sounding  in  school  and 
college,  in  laboratory  and  lecture  room.  It  is  the 
basis  of  all  work  done  by  Lord  Kelvin  and  Helm- 
holtz;  it  is  the  presupposition  which  underlies 
modem  charity ;  it  is  the  obvious  creed  of  both  cap- 
ital and  labor.  Beginning  in  the  realm  of  physical 
science,  it  has  been  transferred  to  the  realm  of  eco- 
nomics, education,  sociology,  until  the  idea  of  life 
under  law  permeates  and  colors  all  our  thinking. 

The  reverence  men  once  felt  for  canon  law  or 
papal  bull  or  imperial  decree  they  now  feel  for  the 
laws  of  nature.  They  keep  on  their  hats  at  the  pass- 
ing of  an  ecclesiastical  pageant,  but  they  bow  in 
admiration  before  Virchow  and  Pasteur.  The  mar- 
vellous tales  once  told  of  the  saints  find  curious 
analogy  in  the  doings  of  Edison  and  Marconi,  and 


THE   ATTITUDE  TOWARD    NEW  TRUTH  6 1 

the  superstition  of  the  ages  of  faith  is  matched  by  the 
credulity  of  the  age  of  popular  science.  The  very 
men  who  find  it  difficult  to  accept  Biblical  miracles 
are  credulous  in  the  extreme  when  the  newspapers 
proclaim  that  the  origin  of  life  has  been  discovered, 
or  that  we  may  soon  be  in  communication  with 
the  inhabitants  of  Mars.  Recently,  a  well-known 
American  scientist  gravely  announced,  in  order  to 
test  the  public  mind,  that  he  had  succeeded  in  photo- 
graphing the  visual  image  which  he  found  on  the 
retina  of  a  domestic  animal.  And  the  public  ac- 
cepted the  preposterous  marvel,  merely  because  it 
was  put  forth  in  the  name  of  science. 

But  in  spite  of  all  exaggerations  and  defects,  the 
"reign  of  law"  has  brought  powerful  reenforcement 
to  religion.  It  has  made  polytheism  impossible. 
It  has  banished  faun  and  dryad,  nymph  and  satyr, 
forever.  Great  Pan  is  dead.  It  has  driven  from 
the  world  all  possibility  of  chance  or  caprice.  It 
has  taught  us  that  whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that 
shall  he  also  reap.  It  has  solemnized  life,  and  by 
its  stringent  affirmations  regarding  heredity  and 
reversion  to  type  has  reaffirmed  some  of  the  older 
doctrines  from  which  the  church  was  retreating. 
Science  has  given  us  such  sanction  for  the  moral 
law  as  our  fathers  never  dreamed  of.  It  has  shown 
us  that  if  we  disobey,  the  penalty  is  not  to  come  in 
Sinaitic  thunder,  but  in  the  poisoning  of  our  own 
blood,  and  the  corruption  of  our  own  nature.    It 


62  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

has  given  us  deeper  conceptions  of  crime  and  punish- 
ment, and  the  meaning  of  hell  and  heaven.  It  has 
shown  us  that,  in  Emerson's  phrase,  *' crime  and 
punishment  grow  out  of  one  stem,"  and  that  the 
Christian  heaven  is  not  some  arbitrary  appendage 
to  earthly  goodness,  but  the  inevitable  outcome  of 
a  goodness  that  is  steadily  climbing  and  growing. 
It  has  furnished  a  new  basis  for  belief  in  prayer. 
The  laws  of  nature  are  to  the  Christian  simply  the 
habits  of  God,  and  a  God  of  fixed  habits  is  the  only 
one  to  whom  we  could  reasonably  pray.  If  the 
Infinite  be  in  any  sense  arbitrary  or  capricious, 
prayer  is  doomed  to  disappointment.  But  if  the 
law  of  cause  and  effect  is  universal  and  invariable, 
then  we  become  sure  that  prayer  "does  work," 
achieves  objective  result,  and  that  the  mighty  change 
it  produces  in  us  is  necessarily  the  cause  of  some 
change  in  the  whole  world  of  matter  and  of  spirit. 
The  prayers  that  we  find  in  Homer  and  Virgil  are 
often  terrified  pleadings  with  fickle  deities  to  break 
through  their  usual  indifference  and  perform  some 
act  of  favoritism.  That  sort  of  prayer  has  become 
impossible  among  rational  men.  We  now  pray,  not 
that  God  will  change  his  law, —  which  is  his  habit,  — ■ 
but  that  we  may  so  perceive  the  law  and  surrender 
to  it  as  to  enter  into  perfect  harmony  with  God,  and 
thus  receive  his  indwelling  and  transforming  power. 
Out  of  the  general  conception  of  the  world  as  a 
growth  under  law  has  come  the  scientific  temper 


THE  ATTITUDE   TOWARD   NEW  TRUTH  63 

and  method.  The  mental  texture  of  such  men  as 
Darwin  and  Huxley  was  wholly  different  from  that 
of  such  men  as  Newman  and  Gladstone.  Mr. 
Gladstone,  with  all  his  superb  and  masterful  powers, 
had  no  conception  of  what  his  contemporary  Her- 
bert Spencer  was  doing.  Mr.  Gladstone's  last  book 
is  called  "The  Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy  Scripture.** 
The  very  tide  shows  a  conception  of  the  Bible  at  the 
farthest  remove  from  present  Biblical  scholarship, 
to  which  the  Bible  is  a  growth,  and  not  a  rock.  The 
scientific  temper  creates  a  distinct  type  of  mentality. 
If  we  bring  a  new  truth  to  a  man  of  artistic  tem- 
perament, he  asks:  "Is  it  fitting  and  harmonious?" 
If  we  bring  the  same  truth  to  a  man  of  linguistic 
and  literary  training,  he  is  likely  to  ask:  "Is  it  in 
accord  with  the  great  authorities?"  But  if  we  bring 
it  to  a  man  of  scientific  temper,  he  asks:  "What 
is  the  evidence?"  And  in  collecting  the  evidence 
he  proceeds  inductively,  abstaining  from  all  con- 
clusions, if  he  is  consistent,  until  the  facts  are  in 
hand  and  have  been  duly  studied.  Observation  of 
the  facts,  classification  of  the  facts,  inference,  verifi- 
cation, conclusion  —  that  is  the  path  over  which  the 
inductive  temper  of  our  own  age  habitually  travels 
in  reaching  truth. 

It  would  be  easy  to  show  that  this  way  of  approach- 
ing truth  finds  much  sympathy  in  the  Christian 
documents.  "Come,  see  a  man  that  told  me  all 
things  that  ever  I  did.    Is  not  this  the  Christ?"  — 


64  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN    THE    MINISTRY 

there  is  the  very  method  of  experiment  to  which  our 
age  has  given  allegiance.  "Believe  not  every  spirit, 
but  try  the  spirits  whether  they  are  of  God"  —  there 
is  precisely  the  process  of  every  chemical  laboratory 
applied  to  spiritual  phenomena.  But  the  Bible  is 
not  intended  as  a  scientific  treatise.  Its  profound 
moral  and  religious  truth  must  be  translated  into  the 
thought-forms  of  our  generation.  There  is  danger, 
of  course,  that  in  exalting  law  we  shall  ignore  per- 
sonality. We  may,  and  often  do,  forget  that 
there  is  more  than  one  kind  of  evidence,  and  that  the 
logical  and  intellectual  alone,  separated  from  the 
rest  of  human  nature,  will  never  lead  a  man  to  the 
deepest  truth.  There  is  danger  lest  in  admitting 
and  expounding  the  universal  law  we  shall  seem 
to  imprison  God  in  his  own  creation,  and  reduce 
ourselves  to  mere  puppets  moved  by  a  string.  But 
in  spite  of  all  dangers  we  must  patiently,  resolutely 
present  the  ancient  message  in  forms  of  present-day 
speech.  Mohammedans  are  forbidden  to  translate 
the  Koran  lest  they  misrepresent  it.  Christians  are 
bound  to  translate  the  Bible  into  every  language, 
disposition,  mode  of  apprehension  —  its  universality 
is  proof  of  its  divineness. 

The  Christian  denominations  of  America  are 
failing  to  realize  the  strategic  importance  of  college 
towns  and  cities.  Many  a  church  is  sending  mis- 
sionaries to  the  western  frontier  or  to  the  Philip- 
pines, while  it  is  doing  nothing  whatever  for  the 


THE   ATTITUDE   TOWARD   NEW   TRUTH  65 

thousands  of  students  who  frequently  congregate  in 
a  single  institution.  Every  pulpit  in  a  college  town 
should  be  filled  by  a  man  who  can  speak  in  the 
vocabulary  of  his  own  generation.  It  is  not  needful 
that  he  be  a  great  orator  or  scholar;  it  is  needful  that 
he  shall  not  widen  the  chasm  which  so  often  exists 
between  the  pulpit  and  the  class-room. 

If  the  preacher  habitually  thinks  of  God  as  the 
"  magnified  hero"  of  Genesis,  while  the  hearer  thinks 
of  him  as  indwelling  presence;  if  the  preacher 
thinks  of  creation  as  a  finished  fact,  and  the  hearer 
thinks  of  it  as  present  process;  if  to  the  one  man 
the  Bible  is  a  rock,  and  to  the  other  a  growth;  if 
one  man  thinks  of  all  truth  as  a  deduction  from  first 
principles,  and  the  other  thinks  of  truth  as  induction 
from  observed  facts;  if  to  one  man  duty  is  a  dis- 
agreeable task  imposed  by  authority,  and  to  the 
other  is  a  mode  of  self-realization  and  the  only  path 
to  joy;  if  to  one  man  the  world  is  Satan's  seat,  and 
to  the  other  the  presence  chamber  of  God ;  if  one  man 
thinks  of  prayer  as  a  way  of  getting  desirable  pres- 
ents, and  the  other  thinks  of  it  as  the  communion 
of  spirits;  if  one  man  looks  upon  Christ's  sacrifice 
as  the  great  exception  to  all  law,  and  the  other  thinks 
of  it  as  the  supreme  exemplification  of  law,  —  then 
the  preacher  may  be  wrong,  or  the  hearer  may  be 
wrong;  but  certainly,  as  they  speak  dififerent  lan- 
guages, neither  can  be  of  much  help  to  the  other. 
And  this  is  the  situation  in  scores  of  college  com- 


66  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

munities  in  America.  The  ministers  are  depressed 
by  what  they  understand  as  antipathy  to  religion  on 
the  part  of  college  students.  The  students  are  be- 
wildered by  one  world-view  in  the  church  and  an- 
other in  the  college. 

It  is,  however,  in  facing  the  naturally  diversified 
and  ungraded  congregation  that  the  chief  problems 
arise.  On  the  one  side  of  the  minister  is  the  world's 
scholarship,  whose  method  he  must  understand, 
whose  growing  results  he  must  keep  close  at  hand. 
On  the  other  side  is  the  human  group  committed 
to  his  charge,  souls  struggling,  sinning,  aspiring, 
crying  for  a  clew  to  life's  maze  and  a  lift  in  its  bur- 
den-bearing. Between  these  two  stands  the  minister, 
not  as  middleman,  —  a  timorous  and  commercial 
designation !  —  but  as  constituting  in  himself  the 
higher  synthesis  of  knowledge  and  sympathy,  of 
scholarship  and  character.  He  sees  that  the  world 
of  scholarship  is  sometimes  given  to  extremes,  that 
it  may  become  arrogant  or  reckless.  He  sees  that 
the  human  group  before  him  are  sometimes  blind 
and  deaf  to  the  truths  they  most  need.  In  the  min- 
ister knowledge  becomes  humanized,  and  humanity 
is  led  deeper  into  knowledge.  The  care  for  truth 
and  the  cure  of  souls  meet  in  the  heart  of  the  min- 
ister. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  desired  that  we  should  have  in 
this  country  such  a  union  of  scholarship  and  fervor 
as  is  frequently  seen  in  England.    We  can  easily 


THE  ATTITUDE   TOWARD   NEW   TRUTH  67 

recall  the  names  of  a  dozen  men  in  recent  English 
and  Scottish  life,  like  those  of  Canon  Farrar  and 
Henry  Drummond  and  George  Adam  Smith,  who 
have  united  large  and  scholarly  investigation  with 
profound  spiritual  fervor.  But  in  America  too  often 
knowledge  and  zeal  have  stood  asunder.  We  have 
had  in  college  and  seminary  learned  linguistic  teach- 
ers who  seldom  are  heard  outside  the  class  room, 
who  never  grapple  with  the  woe  and  sin  of  our  great 
cities,  who  never  face  their  fellows  in  their  primi- 
tive human  hungers  and  passions.  Such  men  can 
teach  paradigms,  but  they  cannot  expound  a  gospel. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  frequently  see  Christian 
workers  who  have  not  spent  two  consecutive  hours 
in  study  for  many  years,  and  who  by  their  pious 
Philistinism  are  steadily  widening  the  breach  be- 
tween intelligence  and  devotion.  They  defend  the 
faith  by  railing  at  science,  they  militantly  aflSrm 
their  belief  in  the  Bible  ''from  cover  to  cover,'* 
and  after  attacking  evolution  and  the  higher  criti- 
cism, sit  down  in  complacent  perspiration  with  con- 
sciousness of  duty  done.  But  is  either  of  these  ex- 
tremes necessary?  What  is  knowledge  worth,  save 
as  it  comes  from  life  and  leads  to  life?  What  is 
life,  if  it  be  not  ever  advancing  entrance  into  truth  ? 
Nobly  has  Phillips  Brooks  charged  us  to  "value  no 
feeling  which  is  not  the  child  of  truth  and  the  parent 
of  duty.'*  When  feeling,  strong  and  fervid  and 
irresistible,  thus  stands  midway  between  perception 


6S         EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

and  action,  between  truth  and  life,  our  problem  is 
largely  solved. 

But  the  question  is  sure  to  arise :  How  far  should 
the  minister  soften  the  impact  of  new  truth  upon 
his  congregation?  How  far  should  he  proclaim 
immediately,  and  to  all,  the  innermost  conceptions 
which  he  himself  has  attained  by  long  years  of  toil 
and  tumult?  Shall  he,  out  of  regard  for  truth,  pro- 
claim at  once  his  entire  conviction?  Or  shall  he, 
out  of  regard  for  the  weak  and  the  timid  and  the 
ignorant,  give  to  the  congregation  something  less 
than  that  which  feeds  his  own  soul  ?  In  the  attempt 
to  act  as  mediator  may  he  not  sacrifice  his  self- 
respect?  In  the  attempt  to  blazon  forth  his  entire 
creed  may  he  not  wreck  his  church  ? 

On  this  subject  there  are  two  classic  utterances 
of  the  last  generation.  The  first  is  by  Thomas  H. 
Huxley,  in  a  letter  written  to  Charles  Kingsley  just 
after  Professor  Huxley  had  been  sorely  shaken  by 
the  sudden  death  of  his  only  son.  In  all  English 
literature  there  is  no  other  letter  so  flaming  and  throb- 
bing with  the  love  of  truth.  *'The  great  blow  which 
fell  upon  me  seemed  to  stir  my  convictions  to  their 
foundation,  and  had  I  lived  a  couple  of  centuries 
earlier  I  could  have  fancied  a  devil  scoffing  at  me 
and  them  —  and  asking  what  profit  it  was  to  have 
stripped  myself  of  the  hopes  and  consolations  of  the 
mass  of  mankind?  To  which  my  only  reply  was 
and  is :  O  devil !  truth  is  better  than  much  profit. 


THE  ATTITUDE  TOWARD   NEW  TRUTH  69 

I  have  searched  over  the  grounds  of  my  belief,  and 
if  wife  and  child  and  name  and  fame  were  all  to  be 
lost  to  me,  one  after  the  other,  as  the  penalty,  still 
I  will  not  lie."  *  In  such  an  utterance  there  is  the 
very  spirit  of  the  aposdes  and  martyrs  —  without, 
alas!  their  vision.  Let  every  young  minister,  after 
weighing  all  the  emoluments  and  honors  which  can 
be  had  at  the  price  of  dissimulation,  cry  out  for  him- 
self, "Still  I  will  not  lie!" 

But  have  we  thus  fully  answered  our  question? 
Is  the  matter  quite  so  simple  and  obvious?  Listen 
to  the  other  utterance,  from  one  who  also  suffered 
much  because  of  his  dissent  from  popular  opinion  — 
Matthew  Arnold.  "There  is  no  surer  proof  of  a 
narrow  and  ill-instructed  mind  than  to  think  and 
suppose  that  what  a  man  takes  to  be  the  truth  on 
religious  matters  is  always  to  be  proclaimed.  Our 
truth  on  these  matters,  and  likewise  the  error  of 
others,  is  something  so  relative  that  the  good  or  harm 
likely  to  be  done  by  speaking  is  always  to  be  taken 
into  account.  .  .  .  The  man  who  believes  that  his 
truth  on  religious  matters  is  so  absolutely  the  truth, 
that,  say  it  when  and  where  and  to  whom  he  will, 
he  cannot  but  do  good  with  it,  is  in  our  day  almost 
always  a  man  whose  truth  is  half  blunder,  and 
wholly  useless."  ^ 

The  solution  of  the  problem  thus  presented  de- 

*  Life  and  Letters,  Vol.  I,  p.  233. 

•  Preface  to  Literature  and  Dogma. 


70  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

mands  first  of  all  genuine  sincerity  and  courage; 
but  these  alone  are  not  enough.  It  demands  also 
common  sense  and  pedagogical  insight.  The  min- 
ister who  adopts  the  educational  standpoint  is  al- 
ready on  his  way  to  the  solution.  No  human  teacher 
ever  dreamed  of  giving  an  entire  course  of  study  in 
a  single  lesson.  No  teacher  can  unfold  his  inner- 
most thought  on  any  subject  to  his  class  the  first 
time  he  meets  it.  To  attempt  that  would  be  to  in- 
duce either  sheer  bewilderment  or  open  hostihty, 
and  in  either  case  to  close  the  minds  of  the  class  to 
further  instruction.  There  is  much  significance  in  the 
evident  gradations  in  the  teaching  of  our  Lord :  *'  From 
that  time  Jesus  began  to  show  unto  his  disciples  how  he 
must  go  up  to  Jerusalem.  ..."  "He  charged  them 
that  they  should  tell  no  man  until  he  was  risen  from 
the  dead.  ..."  ''I  have  many  things  yet  to  say, 
but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now."  The  great  teacher, 
who  faced  scorn  and  crucifixion  without  shrinking, 
drew  back  into  reticence  when  face  to  face  with 
incapacity  for  apprehension.  He  could  meet  the 
Roman  legions  undaunted,  but  he  preferred  to  be 
silent  on  the  deeper  things  of  the  kingdom,  rather 
than  to  bewilder  and  mislead  his  followers  and  cause 
one  of  the  little  ones  to  stumble.  The  educator 
needs  both  courage  to  face  opposition  and  patience 
to  lead  step  by  step  the  dull  and  the  weak.  In 
the  latter  respect  he  is  like  the  shepherd,  who  '*  shall 
gently  lead  those  that  are  with  young."     The  souls 


THE   ATTITUDE  TOWARD   NEW  TRUTH  7 1 

in  whom  new  ideals  are  trembling  to  the  birth  de- 
mand tenderness  and  consideration  from  the  true 
shepherd  of  the  sheep.  But  they  need  at  other 
times  resolute  direction  —  the  club  as  well  as  the 
staff. 

If  the  minister  stands  before  any  congregation 
and  in  order  to  keep  his  place  and  save  his  reputa- 
tion consents  to  the  permanent  concealment  of  the 
deepest  truth  he  knows  —  he  is  a  craven  and  a 
hireling,  and  the  spirit  of  Huxley  shall  rise  up  in  the 
judgment  and  condemn  him.  If  on  the  other  hand 
he  stands  before  his  congregation  to  pour  out  upon 
unprepared  minds  the  most  difficult  truths  in  his 
treasure,  forcing  his  people  in  three  months  over  the 
road  for  which  he  himself  required  thirty  years, 
then  he  is  neither  teacher  nor  shepherd,  and  his 
claim  of  honesty  will  not  save  him  from  being  pro- 
nounced by  clear-sighted  men  unworthy  of  his  place. 
The  minister  who  has  just  entered  on  a  pastorate 
should  sit  down  and  deliberately  lay  out  a  course 
of  training  for  his  congregation  covering  a  series  of 
years.  He  sees  prejudice  to  be  combated  —  but  not 
at  the  first  service;  abuses  to  be  sturdily  rebuked 
—  but  not  until  he  has  won  the  confidence  of  the 
people.  He  sees  corruption  in  public  life  that  must 
be  attacked,  social  theories  that  must  be  replaced, 
false  ideals  that  must  be  exchanged  for  true  ones, 
antiquated  conceptions  of  the  Scriptures  that  must 
be  outgrown.    But  if  he  proposes  to  revolutionize 


72  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

politics,  social  theory,  and  Biblical  study  in  his  first 
six  months  as  minister,  he  should  seek  employment 
only  under  an  itinerant  system.  "I  have  fed  you 
with  milk  and  not  with  meat,  because  ye  were  not 
able  to  bear  it,''  is  the  utterance  of  the  same  apostle 
who  said:  ''I  have  not  shunned  to  declare  unto  you 
the  whole  counsel  of  God."  All  truth  is  for  all  men ! 
—  that  is  the  fundamental  conviction  in  any  strong 
and  fruitful  ministry.  "Line  upon  line,  precept 
upon  precept"  —  that  is  the  only  method  of  instruc- 
tion by  which  broad,  clear-visioned  men  are  made. 
We  may  sum  up  our  whole  discussion  of  the 
minister's  mediating  work  by  saying  that  he  is  to 
keep  alive  man's  faith  in  an  ever  present  God.  He 
is  the  coupler  between  the  generations,  uniting  past 
and  present  in  a  common  vision  of  the  indwelling 
Spirit.  Goodness  does  not  consist  in  reading  how 
other  men  were  good,  and  religion  is  not  describing 
the  altars  which  other  generations  have  built.  Rud- 
yard  KipHng  has  a  story  entided:  ''The  Man  who 
Was."  There  are  sincerely  devout  men  who  seem 
to  beHeve  in  a  God  who  was.  He  was  with  Moses, 
they  say,  opening  up  streams  in  the  flinty  rock;  but 
now  men  must  dig  wells  or  build  aqueducts  if  they 
want  water.  He  was  with  Israel,  granting  the  people 
bread  from  heaven;  but  now  if  a  man  wants  bread, 
let  him  work  for  it.  He  was  with  David  and 
anointed  him  to  the  kingship;  but  now  he  anoints 
nobody,  and  those  who  want  high  office  must  secure 


THB  ATTITUDE  TOWARD   NEW  TRUTH  73 

the  votes.  About  the  year  loo  a.d.  all  inspiration 
ceased,  and  about  200  a.d.  all  miracles  ceased,  and 
now  in  a  world  bereft  of  divine  voices  we  stumble 
and  grope  till  the  end.  O  young  prophets  of  the 
truth,  such  an  idea  is  the  master  falsehood  of  hu- 
manity I  It  is  the  one  fundamental  untruth  which 
will  put  unreality  into  every  sermon  and  impiety  into 
every  prayer.  Our  God  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come. 
In  your  familiar  garden  you  may  hear  his  voice  in  the 
cool  of  the  day.  Moriah  is  to  him  not  more  sacred 
than  Monadnock,  nor  did  Aaron's  rod  bear  diviner 
blossoms  than  our  golden-rod.  Why  seek  we  the 
living  God  only  among  the  dead  symbols?  The 
Bible  is  not  the  story  of  a  vanished  splendor,  the 
melancholy  memorial  of  departed  powers.  It  b 
the  revelation  of  powers  that  now  play  about  us, 
victories  that  may  now  be  won,  and  a  life  which  in 
every  nation  and  every  age  may  be  lived  by  faith  in 
the  "  Strong  Son  of  God,  Immortal  Love." 


m 

MODERN  USES  OF  ANCIENT  SCRIPTURE 

"  The  existence  of  the  Bible,  as  a  book  for  the  people,  is  the 
greatest  benefit  which  the  human  race  has  ever  experienced. 
Every  attempt  to  belittle  it  ...  is  a  crime  against  humanity. 
And  if  there  are  to  be  miracles,  this  book  ...  is  itself  the 
greatest  miracle.  For  here  we  have  a  system  of  religious 
doctrines  and  beliefs  that  has  been  built  up  without  the  help 
of  the  Greek  philosophy,  by  unlearned  persons,  and  that  has, 
more  than  any  other,  exercised  an  influence  for  good  upon  the 
hearts  and  lives  of  men."  —  Immanuel  Kant. 


LECTURE  III 

MODERN   USES  OF  ANCIENT  SCRIPTURE 

The  American  visitor  to  Westminster  Abbey,  the 
great  **  temple  of  silence  and  reconciliation,'*  usually 
makes  his  way  first  to  the  Poets'  Comer,  where  he 
can  see  side  by  side  the  monuments  to  the  chief 
singers  of  the  English-speaking  world  during  the 
last  five  centuries.  It  is  but  a  small  comer  in  the 
vast  Gothic  temple,  yet  there  are  crowded  into  it 
Chaucer  and  Longfellow  and  most  of  the  great  poets 
who  lived  between  them.  As  the  broken  light  falls 
through  the  great  stained  windows  upon  the  marble 
effigies  and  tablets,  it  shows  on  one  side  of  the  narrow 
space  the  writer  of  the  "Canterbury  Tales,"  and  on 
the  other  the  writer  of  the  "Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn," 
and  spreads  before  us  the  whole  message  of  five 
centuries  of  English  poetry,  in  a  space  perhaps  fifty 
feet  square. 

Our  Bible  is  another  abbey,  older,  richer,  sublimer 
than  any  Gothic  minster,  giving  us  in  the  narrow 
compass  of  sixty-six  small  pamphlets  the  entire 
message  of  Israel  to  the  world.  Beginning  with  the 
earliest  literary  compositions  of  the  Hebrew  race, 
such  as  the  song  of  Deborah,  "Arise,  O  Lord,  and 

77 


78  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN  THE   MINISTRY 

let  thine  enemies  be  scattered!"  it  reaches  to  the 
last  cry  of  the  last  surviving  apostle,  "Little  chil- 
dren, love  one  another!"  In  this  small  library  are 
gathered  nearly  all  forms  of  speech  and  of  literature, 
—  orations,  sermons,  poems,  codes  of  law,  history, 
fiction,  legend,  fervid  exhortation,  biting  irony, 
tender  entreaty  —  all  the  multitude  of  voices  through 
which  Israel  has  spoken  to  the  world.  Here  are 
pilgrim  songs  sung  for  centuries  by  innumerable 
caravans  as  they  came  in  sight  of  the  gleaming 
towers  of  Jerusalem.  Here  are  acrostics  curiously 
wrought;  here  are  battle  hymns  full  of  **the  thunder 
of  the  captains  and  the  shouting,"  and  beside  them 
vesper  meditations;  delicate  idylls  of  rural  life,  such 
as  that  of  Ruth  and  Naomi ;  games  and  riddles,  such 
as  were  proposed  by  Samson;  eager  and  affectionate 
correspondence;  and  the  undying  words  of  Christ 
himself. 

This  unique  library  is  the  greatest  single  educating 
power  in  the  modem  world.  It  is  addressed  to  in- 
telligence, and  demands  some  measure  of  education 
on  the  part  of  all  who  would  receive  it.  Ecclesiasti- 
cal architecture  or  pageantry  makes  a  direct  appeal 
to  the  senses.  Embroidered  vestments  impress  the 
dullest  peasant  with  the  dim  sense  of  something  rare 
and  precious.  The  full-voiced  choir,  the  swinging 
censers  and  the  tinkling  bell  impart  a  sense  of  awe 
and  reverence  to  the  man  who  is  half  asleep,  and 
indeed  sometimes  exert  a  hypnotic  influence  which 


MODERN   USES   OF  ANCIENT  SCRIPTURE  79 

merges  all  clear  thought  in  a  glow  of  mystic  feeling. 
But  the  Bible  addresses  and  creates  alert  intelli- 
gence. It  cries  with  Philip:  ** Understandest  thou 
what  thou  readest?**  and  with  Paul :  "  Give  attention 
to  reading,  to  study,  to  teaching." 

Many  millions  of  men  have  learned  to  read  for  no 
other  purpose  than  to  read  the  Bible.  When  a  single 
society  prints  the  Bible  in  three  hundred  and  fifty  lan- 
guages, many  of  which  were  reduced  to  a  written  form 
simply  in  order  that  they  might  receive  the  Bible, 
we  may  gain  some  inkling  of  the  enormous  intellect- 
ual force  generated  by  a  religion  which  reaches  the 
world  through  a  literature.  Millions  of  men  have 
learned  Greek  simply  to  read  the  New  Testament. 
Hebrew  has  been  saved  from  oblivion  among 
Christians  purely  by  the  desire  to  read  the  ipsissima 
verba  of  Israel's  prophets,  priests  and  sages. 

But  the  Bible  demands  not  only  that  men  learn  to 
read.  It  compels  them  to  pass  out  of  America  and 
Europe  into  Asia,  out  of  all  our  Aryan  modes  of  con- 
ceiving truth  into  a  Semitic  atmosphere,  and  to  look 
on  life  through  Semitic  eyes.  It  compels  us  to  ap- 
proach truth  and  duty  and  immortality  through 
forms  of  thought  and  modes  of  speech  and  action 
wrought  out  by  men  who  lived  and  died  not  later 
than  the  first  century  of  our  era.  It  transports  us 
out  of  the  tumultuous  present  into  the  far  and  finished 
past.  In  the  Old  Testament  it  compels  us  to  become 
acquainted  with  institutions,  movements,  and  ideas 


80  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

which  have  played  their  part  and  ceased  to  be,  thus 
exerting  for  hundreds  of  miUions  of  the  common 
people  the  same  calming  and  steadying  power  as 
that  which  the  educated  few  have  found  in  the  classics 
of  Greece  and  Rome.  It  has  put  the  chief  races  of 
the  modem  world  through  the  process  which  the 
Germans  call  Selbstentfremdung,  the  process  of  being 
lifted  out  of  a  narrow  circle  of  selfish  interests  and 
furnished  with  a  new  horizon.  From  a  purely 
intellectual  point  of  view  the  Bible  has  performed 
in  modem  times  a  vastly  greater  educative  service 
than  the  entire  classical  literature  of  the  Romans  and 
the  Greeks.  For  every  one  man  who  has  been 
emancipated  from  the  petty  and  the  transient  and 
made  truly  cosmopoHtan  by  the  classical  discipHnes 
history  can  show  ten  men  who,  through  study  of  the 
Bible,  have  been  placed  in  vital  sympathy  with  per- 
sons and  movements  of  the  ancient  world,  and  have 
experienced  that  kindling  of  imagination,  that  sur- 
render to  noble  ideals  and  devotion  to  distant  ends 
which  is  the  very  core  of  all  true  education. 

And  the  minister  of  every  Christian  church  is  the 
chief,  and  often  the  sole,  interpreter  of  this  mighty 
literature  to  his  congregation.  His  first  clear  duty 
is  to  know  that  literature  from  beginning  to  end,  — 
its  content,  its  trend,  its  dominant  ideas,  its  origin 
and  history.  He  must  know  it  not  merely  because 
he  beHeves  it  to  be  inspired,  but  because  the  world 
has  found  it  inspiring.     He  must  know  it  because  of 


MODERN   USES   OP   ANCIENT   SCRIPTURE  8 1 

its  proved  power  to  create  character.  If  he  does 
not  know  the  message  of  Israel  better  than  he  knows 
the  message  of  Athens  or  Rome  or  Weimar  or  Flor- 
ence or  Stratford,  if  he  has  not  assimilated  into  his 
own  mental  and  spiritual  fibre  the  insight  and  power 
of  Isaiah  and  Amos  and  Paul  and  John,  he  is  a 
workman  that  needs  to  be  ashamed.  Between  Amer- 
ica, foremost  of  all  peoples  in  power  of  initiative, 
and  Israel,  foremost  of  all  peoples  in  the  conviction 
of  the  value  of  righteousness,  stands  the  minister 
of  to-day  as  interpreter.  How,  then,  shall  he  inter- 
pret? His  exegesis  of  particular  passages  is  of  far 
less  importance  than  his  method  and  point  of  view. 
What  is  the  point  of  view  to  which  the  minister 
should  steadily  lift  his  congregation  ? 

The  great  essential  to  any  genuine  interpretation 
of  the  Scriptures  is  to  regard  them  as  a  historic  un- 
folding. They  are  the  record  of  the  progressive 
growth  of  the  divine  thought  in  Israel's  thinking, 
of  the  gradual  revelation  of  the  divine  life  in  Israel's 
living.  Some  conceptions  of  the  Scriptures  are  ab- 
solutely unfruitful.  The  people  must  be  lifted  out 
of  the  old  and  misleading  idea  of  the  Bible  as  a  flat 
surface  of  revelation  —  like  a  Chinese  picture  in 
which  all  objects  are  without  perspective  or  distinc- 
tion of  value,  and  must  be  led  step  by  step  to  see  the 
Bible  as  a  living  growth,  an  organism  of  various  parts 
and  values,  all  of  them  throbbing  with  one  great 
vitality. 


82  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

In  a  certain  museum  of  natural  history  there  lie 
in  the  same  room  a  meteorite  and  a  section  of  a 
California  tree.  The  meteorite,  so  far  as  the  earth 
is  concerned,  has  no  history.  It  appeared  without 
warning  from  the  depths  of  space,  fell  hissing  through 
our  atmosphere,  and  has  since  remained  unchanged. 
We  can  wonder  at  it,  we  might  worship  it,  but  we 
cannot  use  it.  But  the  tree  bears  in  all  its  con- 
centric rings  the  marks  of  its  origin  and  development. 
The  story  of  a  living  organism  is  in  every  fibre. 
The  sunshine,  the  rain,  the  soil,  have  been  slowly 
built  into  its  substance,  and  struggles  with  the 
elemental  forces  have  made  it  compact  and  strong. 

Do  we  think  of  the  Bible  as  a  miraculous  body 
of  doctrine  falling  out  of  the  sky  at  some  remote 
period,  or  as  a  living  organism  slowly  unfolding 
out  of  Israel's  life  under  the  divine  tuition?  If 
we  adopt  the  first  view,  we  can  indeed  honor  and  re- 
vere and  even  worship  the  Bible,  but  we  cannot  study 
it,  for  all  true  study  is  the  study  of  origin  and  growth. 
The  history  of  a  thing  is  the  thing.  The  book  of 
Mormon  professes  to  have  no  history.  It  professes  to 
have  been  miraculously  engraved  on  plates  of  gold. 
It  can  be  obeyed,  but  cannot  be  understood.  The 
Koran  is  alleged  to  have  been  divinely  dictated  to 
an  amanuensis,  and  its  divinity  is  supposed  to  con- 
sist in  exemption  from  the  historic  process.  But 
the  clear  superiority  of  the  Bible  to  such  books 
consists  largely  in  its  enormous  emphasis  on  the 


MODERN   USES  OF   ANCIENT   SCRIPTURE         83 

historical  process,  on  the  lives  of  heroes,  sages,  poets, 
kings  and  prophets,  on  that  development  of  national 
tendencies  and  ideals  which  Jesus  symbolizes  under 
the  figure  of  the  growth  of  seed  —  first  the  blade, 
then  the  ear,  then  the  full  com  in  the  ear.  Instead 
of  being  a  collection  of  statutes  or  a  series  of  propo- 
sitions, the  Bible  is  a  history  of  persons,  nations, 
movements,  in  and  through  which  the  character  of 
God  b  revealed  to  men.  Its  message  is  entangled 
in  events;  its  **  truth,  embodied  in  a  tale,  has  entered 
in  at  lowly  doors.** 

Endlessly  fruitful  is  the  conception  of  the  Bible 
which  sees  in  it  the  result  of  an  unfolding  process. 
With  God,  as  with  us,  actions  speak  louder  than 
words.  Words  are  but  the  post  factum  statement. 
The  real  revelation  is  in  the  deed;  in  the  fact 
that  God  went  forth  before  the  armies  of  Israel 
rather  than  in  the  song  which  celebrates  the  fact; 
in  the  fact  that  a  wonderful  child  appeared  in  Galilee 
rather  than  in  Simeon's  greeting  of  the  Christ-child 
in  the  temple.  From  this  point  of  view  history 
becomes,  as  Froude  said,  "the  voice  of  God,  for- 
ever speaking  across  the  centuries  the  laws  of  right 
and  wrong";  and  as  we  study  the  development 
of  Israel's  conception  of  righteousness,  of  prayer, 
of  ritual,  of  immortality,  of  God,  we  are  coming 
ourselves  into  the  possession  of  the  truth  as  in  no 
other  way.  If  we  once  grant,  as  we  surely  are 
compelled  by  any  knowledge  of  history  to  grant, 


84  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

that  Israel  was  clearly  chosen  of  God  to  bear  to 
the  world  an  ethical  and  spiritual  message,  just  as 
Greece  brought  us  aesthetic  standards  and  Rome 
gave  us  the  foundation  of  all  legal  procedure,  then 
to  study  how  that  message  took  shape  in  Israel's 
literature,  institutions  and  heroic  leaders,  is  the 
surest  pathway  to  moral  verity  for  us.  If  the  truth 
came  into  the  world  through  history,  it  can  never 
be  severed  from  its  original  manifestation.  We  must 
study,  in  the  phrase  of  George  A.  Gordon,  *'the 
ascertained  path  of  the  transforming  influence  as 
it  came  upon  men  in  the  past."  To  tear  the  idea 
from  its  setting  may  be  to  lose  it.  It  is  like  plucking 
a  bird  from  its  nest  in  the  trees  and  putting  it  as 
a  stuffed  specimen  on  a  wooden  peg,  a  thing  of  saw- 
dust and  glassy  eyes.^ 

And  this  historic  point  of  view  furnishes  us  with  a 
new  and  powerful  apologetic.  Some  of  our  most 
earnest  Christian  leaders  are  dubious  regarding 
the  methods  of  modem  Biblical  study.    They  fear 

^A  purely  unhistorical  religion  is  indeed  conceivable;  and  it 
finds  exemplification  in  more  than  one  of  the  great  systems  of 
India  —  a  religion  that  denies  the  worth  or  even  the  reality  of 
the  temporal  processes.  .  .  .  But  such  a  religion  has  no  kinship 
with  the  spirit  of  Christianity  or  the  temper  of  the  Occident.  .  .  . 
Christianity  ought  no  longer  to  let  itself  be  involved  in  obscure 
and  uncertain  issues  of  historical  detail;  but  it  ought  still,  if  it 
be  true  to  its  distinctive  essence,  to  proclaim  the  worth  of  per- 
sonal and  racial  experience  under  the  form  of  time,  and  the 
divineness  of  the  historic  order. 

—  A.  O.  LovEjOY,   Hibhert  Journal,  January,  1907. 


MODERN  USES  OF  ANCIENT  SCRIPTURE    8$ 

the  vigor  and  rigor  of  a  scientific  criticism  which, 
absorbed  in  its  devotion  to  truth,  may  be  ruthless 
and  reckless  in  its  treatment  of  life.  I  am  quite 
ready  to  admit  that  Biblical  criticism  has  some- 
times been  arbitrary  and  even  arrogant.  That  is 
the  stage  through  which  every  new  science  must  pass. 
But  modem  Biblical  scholarship  has  achieved  this, 
—  it  has  made  attacks  on  the  Bible  such  as  those 
of  Paine  and  Ingersoll  forever  impossible.  The 
conceptions  those  men  so  bitterly  assailed  no  longer 
exist  for  either  believers  or  unbelievers.  The  Bible 
they  resisted  and  repudiated  was  as  imaginary  as 
the  image  which  fell  down  from  Jupiter.  The  real 
Bible,  laid  open  to  modem  eyes  by  modem  methods 
of  historical  study,  presents  no  such  anachronisms 
and  contradictions  as  those  which  scepticism  attacked 
and  orthodoxy  defended.  The  real  Bible,  revealed 
by  patient  scholarship,  is  set  free  from  a  thousand 
difl5culties  which  once  constituted  a  burden  to  faith 
and  an  invitation  to  narrow-minded  liberalism. 
If  Biblical  study  has  shaken  the  faith  of  thousands, 
it  has  furnished  new  defence  for  the  faith  of  millions. 
If  it  has  shown  timorous  souls  that  the  four  gospels 
are  not  stenographic  reports,  it  has  carried  back 
those  gospels  to  an  earlier  date  than  the  last  gen- 
eration dared  to  assert,  and  has  transformed  their 
very  divergencies  into  proofs  of  their  genuineness 
and  sincerity.  If  it  has  depressed  the  levitical  system 
of  the  Old  Testament  as  a  late  expression  and 


86         EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

weakening  of  Israel's  religion,  it  has  exalted  the 
prophets'  function  beyond  measure,  and  made  us 
bow  in  reverence  before  Amos  and  Hosea  as  figures 
eternally  significant  in  the  history  of  religion.  If  it 
has  allowed  us  larger  latitude  in  interpreting  the 
story  of  Jonah's  adventure,  it  has  given  us  in  the 
book  of  Jonah  the  earliest  known  proclamation  of 
a  divine  love  which  knows  no  bounds  of  race  or 
creed,  but  enfolds  every  human  being  of  a  myriad 
and  motley  population,  "and  also  much  cattle." 

Formerly  the  objector  used  to  say:  "How  about 
Jael,  the  murderess,  whose  praises  were  sung  by 
all  Israel?  When  Captain  Sisera  fled  to  her  tent 
for  refuge,  she  'brought  him  forth  milk  and  butter 
in  a  lordly  dish.'  She  bade  him  lie  down  and  rest. 
Then  with  the  hammer  she  drove  the  tentpin 
through  the  forehead  of  the  sleeping  man,  and  'at 
her  feet  he  bowed,  he  fell.'  Yet  she  is  exalted 
as  a  moral  heroine.  Is  this  Biblical  morality?" 
To  which  we  answer  that  we  have  no  more  reason 
to  expect  to  find  in  the  days  of  the  Judges  of  Israel 
such  forgiveness  of  enemies  as  is  commanded  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  than  we  have  to  find 
among  the  Visigoths  the  Ninth  Symphony  of  Bee- 
thoven or  the  Sistine  Madonna.  Israel  must  first 
learn  to  hate  evil  and  utterly  repudiate  it,  and  if 
that  repudiation  expressed  itself  in  that  early  age 
in  gross  and  barbarous  forms,  those  forms  simply 
confirm  the  truth  of  the  story  and  the  reality  of  the 


MODERN   USES  OF  ANCIENT  SCRIPTURE         8/ 

moral  evolution.  If  Jael  had  been  represented  as 
saying,  "Neither  do  I  condemn  thee,  go  and  sin 
no  more,"  would  any  one  of  us  receive  the  narrative 
as  a  veracious  account  of  veritable  revelation? 

Formerly  men  said:  "Do  you  really  believe  that 
the  Eternal  once  delighted  in  the  sacrifices  that 
smoked  on  Israel's  altars?  Is  the  Spirit  of  the  uni- 
verse gratified  by  a  system  which  slew  thousands 
of  innocent  creatures,  and  made  the  sacred  shrine 
a  shambles  running  red  with  blood  of  beasts  and 
birds?"  To  which  we  may  now  answer:  Once 
every  nation,  even  the  most  civilized,  approached 
its  deity  through  the  symbolic  surrender  of  life. 
The  outpouring  of  the  blood  of  lamb  or  dove  was 
the  emblem  of  the  self-giving  of  the  worshippers. 
Therefore  Israel  was  allowed  under  certain  re- 
strictions to  continue  for  a  time  that  system.  But 
constantly  the  prophets  thundered  against  the  abuses 
of  the  system,  and  at  times  against  its  very  existence. 
"I  spake  not  unto  your  fathers,"  is  Jeremiah's 
report  of  the  divine  attitude,  "concerning  burnt 
ofiFerings  or  sacrifices;  but  this  thing  I  commanded 
them:  Hearken  unto  my  voice  and  I  will  be  your 
God."  The  prophet  Micah  declares  there  is  no 
ritual  requirement  in  worship:  "What  doth  the 
Lord  thy  God  require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  to 
love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God?" 
The  psalmist  cries:  "The  sacrifices  of  God  are 
a  broken  spirit,"  and  finally  Jesus  gives  us  the 


SS  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

complete  insight:  "God  is  spirit,  and  they  that 
worship  him  must  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in 
truth."  To  regard  the  first  steps  in  this  developing 
apprehension  of  true  worship  as  the  final  teaching 
of  the  Bible  is  so  unhistorical  as  to  be  wholly  mis- 
leading. If  we  were  asked  to-day  some  question 
as  to  the  teachings  of  astronomy,  none  of  us  would 
dream  of  quoting  the  statements  in  an  astronomical 
text-book  of  fifty  years  ago,  unless  indorsed  by 
later  writers.  We  recognize  that  the  science  of  as- 
tronomy must  be  judged  by  its  latest  achievement. 
The  Bible  teaches  only  what  it  teaches  last. 

Still  the  Mormon  missionaries  use  the  example 
of  patriarchal  polygamy  as  a  sanction  for  their 
system.  "Was  not  Abraham  a  polygamist?  Was 
he  not  the  friend  of  God?  If  the  polygamist  was 
thus  accepted  once,  why  object  to  him  to-day?" 
The  very  question  exposes  the  questioner's  mis- 
apprehension of  the  whole  Biblical  literature.  Not 
one  of  the  patriarchs  could  claim  admission  into 
a  modem  church.  Nor  would  any  church  of  to-day 
receive  the  saints  of  the  thirteenth  or  even  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  It  is  the  business  of  religion 
to  turn  good  into  evil,  i.e.  to  make  the  goodness 
of  yesterday  appear  wholly  inadequate  for  the 
requirements  of  to-day.  Monogamy  is  in  many 
nations  a  late  development.  But  when  Christ 
says,  "They  twain  shall  be  one  flesh,"  all  earlier 
and  conflicting  ideals  vanish  in  the  clear  ethical 
illumination. 


MODERN   USES  OP  ANCIENT  SCRIPTURE  89 

Slavery  was  defended  out  of  the  Bible  by  an  array 
of  proof- texts  that  from  the  old  standpoint  were 
unanswerable.  The  "divine  right  to  govern  wrong" 
has  been  buttressed  for  ages  by  a  literalism  which, 
tearing  an  apostolic  phrase  out  of  a  personal  letter, 
exalted  it  into  an  eternal  decree,  or  seizing  on  a 
local  regulation  of  a  single  period  in  Israel's  history 
transformed  it  into  a  code  binding  on  all  the  leg- 
islatures of  the  world.  Just  after  a  recent  and 
peculiarly  atrocious  case  of  lynching,  an  eminent 
and  able  clergyman  preached  a  sermon  and  pub- 
lished letters,  asserting  that  "mob-courts"  find  in 
the  Mosaic  law  a  divine  sanction  which  the  jury 
system,  "only  five  hundred  years  old,"  cannot  claim. 
He  affirmed  that  the  divine  method  of  "expiation, 
not  simply  punishment  or  warning,"  is  revealed 
in  the  thirty-fifth  chapter  of  the  book  of  Numbers. 
According  to  that  chapter  the  kinsfolk  of  a  mur- 
dered man  have  a  recognized  duty.  The  Hebrew 
court  which  sat  in  judgment  on  the  wilful  murderer 
"seems  to  have  been  constituted  of  those  people 
who  were  conveniently  situated  as  to  the  crime.  It 
was  a  tribunal  of  by-standers.  The  trial  was  free 
from  formality,  from  technical  hindrances,  it  fol- 
lowed the  crime  inmiediately,  and  the  law  was 
executed  promptly.  ...  I  believe  that  Moses 
was  as  wise  and  safe  a  lawgiver  as  Blackstone, 
and  that  God  knew  what  was  best  better  than  any 
legislative  body  that  has  assembled  in  England  or 


90  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN    THE   MINISTRY 

America  since  the  barons  of  England  met  King 
John  at  Runnymede.'*  Such  a  claim  —  that  the 
code  which  prevailed  in  ancient  Israel  was  intended 
to  stereotype  the  administration  of  justice,  both  in 
spirit  and  method,  through  all  the  future  —  cannot 
be  met  by  the  negative  method  of  questioning 
Mosaic  authorship  or  pointing  out  the  obviously 
irrational  results.  We  must  replace,  if  we  are  to 
conquer.  We  must  replace  that  entire  attitude 
and  mental  habit,  by  leading  ministers  and  churches 
into  a  conception  of  the  Scriptures  as  the  real 
reflection  of  a  real  history,  a  veritable  and  gradual 
unfolding  of  divine  principles  in  changing  human 
institutions. 

"  Do  you  believe,"  we  have  heard  men  say,  "that 
the  eternal  God  walked  in  the  garden  in  the  cool 
of  the  day,  and  'came  down*  to  see  what  was 
going  on  at  the  tower  of  Babel,  and  'repented  him- 
self of  the  making  of  man?"  To  which  we  answer 
that  Israel  must  conceive  God  in  a  vivid  way  before 
it  could  conceive  him  in  a  spiritual  way.  First 
a  powerful  and  impressive  realism,  then  the  re- 
finement of  the  idea  —  that  is  always  the  path  of 
progress.  Therefore  those  early  ideas  of  God 
as  magnified  hero  were  the  only  possible  ones  at 
the  time.  Israel's  God  must  be  no  mere  ghost  or 
exhalation ;  he  must  do  things,  and  in  striking  ways. 
He  feels  anger  and  jealousy  and  anxiety  and  re- 
pentance—  but  he  is  alivcj  which  was  the  chief 


MODERN   USES   OF   ANCreNT   SCRIPTURE         QI 

requisite  after  all.  The  gods  of  Egypt  were  not 
alive.  With  stony  stare  they  sat  in  the  sands  of 
Egyptian  deserts  looking  out  over  the  unchanging 
horizon.  The  gods  of  Assyria  did  nothing  —  "eyes 
have  they,  but  they  see  not,  neither  speak  they  through 
their  throat."  A  God  of  conscious  purpose,  will, 
energy,  was  Israel's  first  need.  That  idea  once 
implanted  in  Israel's  nature,  the  spiritualization  of 
the  idea  could  follow.  Later  came  Isaiah  crying : 
"To  whom  will  ye  liken  me?  saith  the  Lord,"  and 
later  yet  came  Christ  saying:  "Our  Father." 

A  well-known  layman  recently  recounted  his 
experience  by  saying:  "After  teaching  a  Bible 
class  for  thirty  years  I  have  just  got  a  new  New 
Testament.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  have 
been  through  the  book  of  Acts,  inserting  in  the  story 
each  of  the  New  Testament  epistles  at  the  exact 
point  where  it  was  written.  This  has  cast  a  flood 
of  light  on  both  the  history  and  the  correspondence, 
and  so  revolutionized  my  understanding  of  the 
beginnings  of  the  Christian  church  that  I  have 
practically  found  a  new  New  Testament."  If  any 
man  would  go  through  the  Old  Testament  in  the 
same  way,  placing  the  messages  of  the  prophets 
where  they  belong  in  the  historic  narrative,  he  would 
find  all  Hebrew  prophecy  aglow  with  new  meaning. 
The  process  of  placing  the  literature  in  the  unfold- 
ing history,  applied  to  any  portion  of  the  Bible,  never 
fails  to  give  the  reader  a  wholly  new  perspective. 


92  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

Suppose  that  I  wished  to  convey  to  some  friend 
in  Germany  an  idea  of  the  significance  of  the  life 
and  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  might  instruct 
a  printer  to  collect  four  biographies  of  Lincoln  written 
by  those  who  knew  him  best.  Then  I  might  select 
some  history  of  the  reconstructive  period  by  a  com- 
petent scholar.  Then  I  might  select  a  group  of 
important  letters  from  members  of  Lincoln's  cabinet 
or  their  friends.  Finally  selecting  some  great 
poem,  like  the  ''Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic," 
I  might  direct  the  printer  to  bind  all  this  literature 
into  a  single  volume.  But  my  friend  in  Germany 
must  clearly  understand  that  the  various  parts  of 
the  volume  are  not  by  one  writer.  If  he  reads  the 
letters  written  before  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  as  if 
they  were  written  after  the  assassination  of  Lincoln, 
or  attributes  the  sentiments  of  Wilkes  Booth  to 
Secretary  Stanton,  he  must  have  only  a  distorted 
conception  of  Lincoln  and  his  imprint  on  America. 

So  in  the  New  Testament  we  have  four  lives  of 
our  Lord,  written  by  those  in  closest  touch  with  the 
inner  circle  of  his  friends.  Then  we  have  in  the 
book  of  the  Acts  the  religious  reconstruction,  out- 
lined by  Luke  the  physician.  Then  follows  a  re- 
markable correspondence,  holding  up  the  mirror  to 
the  life  of  the  early  church.  And  at  the  end  we  have 
the  great  prose  poem  of  the  Apocalypse.  But  to 
make  no  distinction  between  the  utterances  of 
Christ  and  of  Paul,  to  confuse  Simon  Peter  with 


MODERN   USES  OF   ANCIENT   SCRIPTURE         93 

Simon  Magus,  or  to  suppose  that  the  allegory  of 
Hagar  and  Ishmael  has  the  moral  value  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  is  to  lose  all  proportion  and 
perspective,  and  remain  a  stranger  to  the  impubes 
which  produced  our  New  Testament  and  made  it 
dynamic  in  the  history  of  the  world.  Only  when 
we  see  the  Bible  as  the  story  of  a  developing  process 
under  divine  tuition  do  we  perceive  what  our  religion 
has  cost  in  struggle  and  tears  and  blood;  only  then 
do  we  discern 

"In  what  a  forge  and  what  a  heat 
Were  shaped  the  anchors  of  our  hope." 

And  this  historical  view-point  is  not  for  technical 
scholars  merely ;  it  is  for  every  one.  To  some  extent 
it  has  always  been  adopted  by  the  church.  The 
humblest  Christian  has  always  delighted  to  trace 
striking  utterances  of  Scripture  to  their  origin  in 
events.  Even  the  simplest  faith  has  always  found 
in  the  i8th  Psalm  a  faithful  transcript  of  the 
experience  of  David,  and  has  remembered  that 
Paul's  cry  to  the  Athenians,  "Turn  from  these 
vanities,"  was  uttered  before  the  superb  marbles 
of  the  Acropolis.  But  that  which  has  been  the  ex- 
ceptional must  become  the  habitual.  All  Christians 
must  steadily  see  all  Biblical  truth  framed  in  the 
Biblical  story,  and  interpret  that  truth  according 
to  the  "rule  of  three"  proposed  by  Bishop  West- 
cott:  "As  were  the  circumstances  under  which  the 
original   word   was   written   to   our   circumstances 


94  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

to-day,  so  will  be  the  message  originally  given  to 
what  is  God's  message  therefrom  to  us  to-day." 

What  we  have  said  about  the  permanent  value 
of  the  Bible,  as  the  story  of  a  progressive  unveiling 
of  truth  in  the  life  of  a  single  race,  acquires  strongest 
corroboration  from  the  attitude  of  Jesus  toward 
his  Bible  —  the  Old  Testament.  He  turned  away 
from  most  of  the  religious  leaders  and  religious 
performances  of  his  time.  We  know  his  judgment 
on  the  priests  around  him:  they  ** passed  by  on  the 
other  side."  We  know  his  opinion  of  the  Pharisees: 
"blind  guides  which  strain  at  a  gnat  and  swallow 
a  camel."  We  know  his  judgment  on  the  gor- 
geous temple  which  Solomon  and  Herod  conspired 
to  build:  "there  shall  not  be  left  one  stone  upon 
another."  He  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
phylacteries  and  fastings  and  penances.  Why  then 
did  he  not  pronounce  the  Old  Testament  to  have 
served  its  purpose  in  Israel's  infancy,  but  to  have 
grown  wearisome  for  its  maturer  days?  He  said 
the  true  worship  should  be  neither  at  Jerusalem  nor 
Gerizim ;  why  did  he  not  add  it  should  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  Deuteronomy  or  Genesis,  with  Amos 
or  Hosea  ?  Why  did  he  not,  as  some  writers  of  to-day,- 
pronounce  the  Old  Testament  "a  mill-stone  round 
the  neck  of  true  religion"?  On  the  contrary,  he 
fed  his  own  consciousness  upon  those  Scriptures, 
and  at  all  the  great  crises  of  life  he  stayed  his  soul 
upon  the  writings  of  Israel.     He  appeared  indeed 


MODERN   USES  OF  ANCIENT  SCRIPTURE         9$ 

to  break  with  the  past,  and  in  nearly  every  discus- 
sion he  was  found  on  the  side  of  freedom.  As  he 
spoke  men  cried:  "What  new  doctrine  is  this?" 
But  the  new  doctrine  was  rooted  in  the  old  history. 
His  one  great  answer  to  the  perplexing  questions  of 
his  time  was  a  reference  to  the  principles  embedded 
in  the  Hebrew  history.  When  men  asked  him 
about  marriage,  he  answered:  "Have  ye  not  read 
how  God  made  them  at  the  beginning?"  When 
asked  concerning  the  Sabbath,  he  answered:  "Have 
ye  not  read  what  David  did?"  When  men  would 
entangle  him  in  riddles  regarding  the  resurrection, 
he  answered:  "Have  ye  not  read  how  God  spake  to 
Moses  in  the  passage  called  the  bush?"  As  the 
shadow  of  the  cross  fell  upon  him,  he  cried:  "The 
things  which  are  written  must  be  accomplished  in 
me."  When  the  utter  darkness  came,  he  quoted 
the  22d  Psalm:  "£/^/,  eloiy  lama  sabbacthani.** 
And  on  the  way  to  Emmaus  he  "expounded  in  all 
the  Scriptures  the  things  concerning  himself." 

These  facts  are  decisive  as  to  the  religious  value 
of  the  Old  Testament.  We  would  not  indeed  seek 
to  involve  our  Lord  in  modem  literary  controversy. 
All  our  questions  regarding  documents,  date,  authors, 
did  not  exist  in  Christ's  time,  and  on  them  he  has 
given  no  decision  whatever.  One  would  no  more 
look  to  the  teaching  of  Christ  for  any  judgment  as 
to  who  wrote  the  iioth  Psalm,  than  he  would  look 
to  John  Bunyan  for  a  theory  of  the  electric  light. 


96  EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

Christ  no  more  gives  us  truth  about  production  of 
literature  than  about  the  production  of  gold  or  grain. 
But  the  purest  spirit  of  all  history  must  have  taken 
some  decisive  attitude  toward  the  religious  value 
of  Israel's  bequest.  He  found  in  it  something  es- 
sential for  himself,  for  his  nation,  and  for  the  world. 
And  that  one  fact  makes  the  Old  Testament  forever 
significant  and  indispensable  to  humanity. 

But  our  Lord's  way  of  using  the  Old  Testament 
is  fundamentally  historical.  He  does  not  merely 
quote  isolated  texts  —  always  a  futile  method  in 
argument  —  but  he  educes  principles  of  perpetual 
validity.  He  shows  us  the  enduring  truth  at  the 
heart  of  the  most  picturesque  tradition.  A  man 
wishing  to  prove  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection 
might  search  the  entire  Old  Testament  for  some 
formal  statement  on  the  matter,  and  find  none. 
Jesus  finds  the  truth  where  no  mere  grammarian  or 
antiquarian,  no  student  of  the  dative  case,  would 
dream  of  seeing  it  —  in  the  declaration,  "I  am  the 
God  of  Abraham,  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God 
of  Jacob."  To  be  the  God  of  a  man,  argues  Jesus, 
cannot  mean  to  allow  that  man  after  a  few  years 
to  drop  into  oblivion.  God  is  not  the  God  of  dead 
men,  but  living  ones;  therefore  Israel's  heroes  are 
still  alive. 

So  it  was  in  regard  to  Sabbath  keeping.  Any 
rabbi  could  quote  texts.  So  many  paces  were  al- 
lowed   for    a  Sabbath  day's  journey.     The  prohi- 


MODERN   USES  OF  ANCIENT  SCRIPTURE         9/ 

bition  of  all  work  was  held  to  prevent  the  tying 
of  knots  above  a  certain  size  or  the  carrying  of 
baskets  beyond  a  certain  weight.  The  Nazarene 
prophet  brushes  at  once  through  these  thickets  of 
rabbinic  casuistry.  He  consults  no  law-book,  but 
makes  us  acquainted  afresh  with  the  rugged  David, 
son  of  Jesse.  He  bids  us  look  again  at  that  virile, 
daring  figure.  Did  David  submit  to  these  petty 
regulations,  or  listen  to  this  phrase-mongering, 
when  human  life  was  at  stake?  No;  he  entered 
into  the  holy  place  and  seized  the  sacred  bread  and 
fed  his  standing  men.  "Wherefore  it  is  lawful  to 
do  good  on  the  Sabbath  day.'*  Thus  as  Shake- 
speare teaches  patriotism  by  calling  us  back  into 
the  presence  of  the  English  kings;  as  Tennyson 
inculcates  the  spotless  life  by  seating  us  among 
the  knights  of  King  Arthur's  Court:  so  Jesus  leads 
us  for  moral  direction  and  inspiration  away  from 
all  legal  codes  into  the  presence  of  the  great  per- 
sonalities of  Hebrew  history. 

How  simple  and  direct  and  non-ecclesiastical  is 
such  treatment;  how  free  from  pedantry  and  subt- 
lety the  whole  method  of  interpretation!  This  is 
not  the  exposition  of  a  professional  exegete  or  casuist, 
but  of  a  transparent  mind  finding  God  visible  in 
nature  and  audible  in  history.  Jesus  treated  the 
Old  Testament  with  a  largeness  of  view,  a  freedom 
of  judgment,  which  we  are  in  constant  danger  of 
losing.    It  is  indeed  important  to  study  moods  and 


98  EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

tenses  of  verbs,  to  distinguish  documents  when 
they  exist,  to  examine  syntax  and  vocabulary. 
But  the  microscopic  eye  may  miss  the  telescopic 
magnitudes;  and  while  we  succeed  in  reducing  the 
composition  of  the  Hexateuch  to  an  algebraic  formula 
the  throb  of  the  poetry  and  the  organ  tones  of  the 
prophecy  may  escape  us  lamentably  and  forever.  The 
knife  of  the  critic  and  the  spade  of  the  archaeologist 
are  a  part  of  the  equipment  of  the  true  interpreter. 
But  still  more  essential  is  it  so  to  commune  with  the 
great  personalities  of  Israel,  and  so  to  ponder  their 
message  that  we  shall  not  merely  pluck  a  flower  here 
and  there  from  their  writings,  but  shall  be  partakers 
of  their  perceptions  of  the  unseen,  their  passion  for 
righteousness,  their  surrender  to  the  infinite.  Thus 
we  shall  find  in  the  Bible  not  so  much  a  chart  by 
which  to  sail,  as  the  experience  of  the  most  daring 
sailors  in  the  spiritual  realm.  It  will  be  to  us  not 
a  mechanical  list  of  things  to  be  done  or  omitted, 
not  a  mere  diagram  of  dangerous  roads  to  be  avoided, 
but  the  experience  of  the  greatest  travellers  in  regions 
of  the  soul,  vital  and  throbbing  with  the  hard-won 
victories  of  those  "who  through  faith  subdued 
kingdoms  and  put  to  flight  armies  of  aliens." 

"What  bard, 
At  the  height  of  his  vision,  can  deem, 
Of  God,  of  the  world,  of  the  soul, 
With  a  plainness  as  near, 
As  flashing  as  Moses  felt, 


MODERN   USES   OF   ANCIENT   SCRIPTURE  99 

When  he  lay  in  the  night  by  his  flock 
On  the  starlit  Arabian  waste? 
Can  rise  and  obey 
The  beck  of  the  Spirit  like  him?" 

It  remains  to  speak  of  certain  specific  uses  of  the 
Bible  in  the  modem  world.  We  particularly  need 
the  Old  Testament  for  appreciation  of  the  order 
and  beauty  of  nature.  The  Old  Testament,  giving 
much  larger  space  to  the  poetical  element  than  does 
the  New  Testament,  has  a  perception  of  the  divine 
presence  in  the  visible  world  which  is  far  beyond 
any  similar  insight  in  the  poetry  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
Our  prosaic  Western  intellect  is  often  troubled  when 
told  that  a  certain  passage  is  poetry;  for  poetry 
often  means  to  us  the  unreal  and  untrue.  Here 
comes  out  very  clearly  the  difference  between  the 
Aryan  and  Semitic  mind.  Our  hard  American 
common  sense,  brought  up  on  the  spelling-book  and 
mental  arithmetic,  often  interprets  Scripture  as 
if  it  were  a  section  of  a  railroad  time-table.  In  the 
time-table  we  want  no  tropes,  no  glow  of  enthusiasm 
or  sympathy,  only  the  hard  facts  in  the  briefest 
possible  form.  It  was  a  man  of  such  temperament 
who  said  that  Shakespeare  was  evidently  confused 
when  he  wrote:  "Sermons  in  stones,  and  books 
in  running  brooks."  '* Evidently,"  said  this  astute 
emender  of  poetic  blunders,  **  Shakespeare  meant  to 
say,  *  Sermons  in  books  and  stones  in  running 
brooks!'"    But  a  large  part  of  the  Old  Testament 


100       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

consists  of  an  idealistic  poetic  construction  of  the  phys- 
ical order.  Hence  while  our  theological  definitions 
are  based  on  the  New  Testament,  our  vision  of  the 
beauty  of  the  world  comes  from  the  Old  Testament. 
The  apostle  Paul  could  sail  through  the  ^Egean  Sea 
apparently  without  a  glimpse  of  any  beauty  of  sun- 
set or  starlight,  or  any  appreciation  of  the  morning 
splendor  of  the  Isles  of  Greece.  His  eyes  were 
fixed  on  his  moral  and  spiritual  mission.  What 
did  he  care  for  the  crescent  glory  of  the  dawn,  or 
the  gleam  of  the  waves  on  a  wrinkled  sea?  Sen- 
suous beauty  had  for  him  no  existence:  as  it  had 
none  for  John  Calvin,  who  could  live  for  years  by 
the  Lake  of  Geneva  without  noting  its  exquisite 
blue,  or  alluding  in  all  his  writings  to  the  white 
summit  lifting  itself  into  the  sky  beyond.  Jesus 
indeed  was  tremulously  sensitive  to  the  beauty  of 
nature.  He  saw  in  the  lily  a  glory  more  than 
Solomon's,  in  the  evening  cloud  a  prophecy,  and 
in  the  bird's  nest  a  sermon.  But  his  apostles  in 
their  magnificent  spiritual  intensity  sometimes  spoke 
of  this  world  simply  as  a  hostelry  for  pilgrims  whose 
gaze  was  fixed  on  a  city  out  of  sight.  Whenever 
Christian  hymnology  would  sing  of  the  splendor 
of  God's  world,  it  has  gone  back  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment pictures  of  ^'day  unto  day  uttering  speech  and 
night  unto  night  showing  knowledge";  of  the  birds 
that  sing  among  the  branches ;  of  the  leviathan  that 
''maketh  the  deep  to  boil  like  a  pot,"  and  the  young 


MODERN   USES  OP  ANCIENT  SCRIPTURE        lOI 

lions  that  "roar  after  their  prey  and  seek  their 
meat  from  God." 

It  would  be  instructive  to  compare  two  descrip- 
tions of  a  sudden  storm,  —  one  given  by  a  modem 
weather  bureau  and  the  other  in  the  29th  Psalm. 
The  report  of  the  meteorologist  might  tell  us  that 
an  area  of  low  pressure  has  moved  eastward  from 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  that  the  barometer  has  fallen 
rapidly,  and  the  wind  is  blowing  fifty  miles  an  hour. 
But  the  Hebrew  poet  has  no  instruments  of  precision 
and  needs  none.  He  is  dealing  not  with  quantity 
of  matter,  but  quality  of  meaning. 

"The  voice  of  the  Lord  is  upx)n  the  waters, 
The  God  of  glory  thundereth. 

4t  ♦  4c  «  «  «  * 

The  voice  of  the  Lord  breaketh  the  cedars, 
Yea,  the  Lord  breaketh  in  pieces  the  cedars  of  Lebanon. 

♦  ♦♦***♦ 

The  voice  of  the  Lord  maketh  the  hinds  to  calve 
And  strippeth  the  forests  bare; 
And  in  his  temple  everything  saith,  Glory." 

Civilization  would  be  difficult  to-day  without  the 
precise  physical  measurements  of  the  scientific 
observer.  But  civilization  would  be  hard  and  cold 
and  shallow  without  that  vision  of  the  divine  pres- 
ence behind  physical  phenomena  which  is  the  often 
unrecognized  gift  of  the  Old  Testament. 

For  still  another  purpose  we  go  to  the  older  por- 
tions of  the  Bible  —  for  the  sense  of  social  and 
civic  duty.     The  New  Testament  is  very  clearly 


102       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN  THE   MINISTRY 

the  exponent  of  religious  individualism.  The  in- 
dividual had  been  forgotten  and  lost  in  the  ambition 
of  the  great  military  leaders  of  the  ancient  world, 
and  in  the  speculations  of  the  great  philosophers. 
Alexander  and  Plato  are  at  one  in  the  complete 
subjection  of  the  individual  to  the  state.  Hence 
the  New  Testament  stirs  men  to  individual  duty 
and  action.  Its  characteristic  cry  is:  ''What  shall  / 
do  to  be  saved?"  It  covers  too  short  a  period  to 
show  us  the  outworking  of  righteousness  or  un- 
righteousness on  a  national  scale.  From  the  begin- 
ning of  Christ's  ministry  to  the  death  of  Paul  is 
too  short  a  time  to  trace  the  rise  and  fall  of  kingdoms 
and  dynasties.  Brief,  vivid  biographies  of  single  men 
summon  us  to  individual  allegiance  and  heroism. 
But  the  Old  Testament,  covering  at  least  fifteen 
hundred  years  in  its  outline  of  events,  paints  its  pic- 
tures on  a  broader  canvas,  where  we  see  how  the 
divine  power  raises  up  Pharaoh,  anoints  David,  girds 
Cyrus,  and  summons  nations  to  execute  its  great 
decree. 

Moreover,  the  expectation  of  the  apostles  of  our 
Lord,  that  the  end  of  the  age  was  close  at  hand,  was 
not  a  stimulus  to  patriotism.  Faith  in  the  endur- 
ance of  institutions  is  essential  to  devotion  to  their 
welfare.  The  duty  of  serving  one's  country  through 
holding  public  office,  or  by  dying  for  the  protection 
of  the  government  from  its  foes,  is  not  easily  based 
on  a  New  Testament  epistle.    What  mattered  it 


MODERN   USES   OF   ANCIENT   SCRIPTURE        10$ 

whether  Nero  or  some  other  tyrant  sat  upon  the 
imperial  throne,  when  soon  all  governments  were  to 
vanish,  when  the  heavens  should  be  rolled  together  as 
a  scroll,  and  the  elements  melt  with  fervent  heat  ? 
The  influence  of  eschatology  on  ethics  is  too  large 
a  subject  to  be  considered  at  this  point.  Yet  that 
the  expectation  of  the  speedy  ending  of  the  age 
aflfected  the  Christian  attitude  toward  the  state  no 
one  can  doubt.  But  Christian  patriots  of  all  centu- 
ries have  sustained  themselves  by  the  examples  of  the 
great  popular  reformers  and  prophets  of  Israel,  and 
the  commonwealth  in  England,  and  in  New  England 
as  well,  was  modelled  after  the  Hebrew  theocracy. 
George  Adam  Smith  has  pointed  out  how,  in  the  great 
struggle  of  English  history  between  royal  prerogative 
and  popular  rights,  the  kings  have  gone  to  the  New 
Testament,  and  the  people  to  the  Old  Testament, 
for  support.  The  Stuarts  have  appealed  to  the 
injunctions:  "Honor  the  king  .  .  .  submit  your- 
selves to  every  ordinance  of  man  .  .  .  obey  them 
that  have  the  rule  over  you,"  while  the  leaders  of 
the  people  have  found  inspiration  in  the  narratives 
of  Moses  at  the  court  of  Pharaoh,  and  Elijah  defying 
Ahab. 

It  is  largely  to  the  magnificent  individualism  of  the 
New  Testament  that  we  owe  the  moral  initiative  and 
energy  of  the  modem  world  to-day.  But  the  New 
Testament  presupposes  instruction  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  in  the  latter  we  find  justification  for  that 


104       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

great  "consciousness  of  kind"  which  is  sweeping 
over  the  modem  world.  Too  often  has  individualism 
developed  a  certain  *'otherwise-mindedness"  which 
prevents  civic  cooperation.  Too  often  have  the 
saints  stood  asunder  like  statues  on  their  pedestals, 
each  admirable  in  itself,  but  each  isolated  and  chilly. 
The  great  individual  devotion  of  the  apostolic  age 
finds  its  natural  and  needed  supplement  in  the 
patriotic  devotion  of  the  Old  Testament  heroes, 
whose  life  was  intertwined  with  that  of  the  nation, 
and  who  would  rather  be  blotted  out  of  the  divine 
book  than  see  their  nation  suffer. 

Taking  thus  the  entire  library  of  Hebrew  and 
Christian  Scriptures  as  the  great  means  of  instruction 
in  righteousness,  we  get  some  intimation  of  what 
should  be  the  "proportion  of  truth"  in  Christian 
preaching.  It  is  not  what  a  minister  believes,  but 
what  he  emphasizes,  that  gives  his  work  its  character- 
istic quality.  It  is  not  the  truths  that  are  kept  in 
the  background,  or  on  the  upper  shelf,  that  achieve 
results,  but  the  truths  that  are  persistently  thrust  to 
the  front  and  kept  in  the  focus  of  illumination. 
The  minister,  with  freedom  to  select  his  text  from 
any  part  of  the  Biblical  literature,  and  his  theme 
from  any  phase  of  human  life,  has  a  freedom  of 
choice  such  as  no  other  calling  dreams  of.  The 
physician  seldom  can  choose  the  ills  which  he  must 
treat,  or  the  lawyer  the  cases  he  must  argue.  But 
the  minister  has  an  unparalleled  freedom  of  theme, 


MODERN   USES   OF   ANCIENT   SCRIPTURE         10$ 

even  if  he  be  under  the  limitations  of  the  Church 
Year,  and  may  easily  be  led  into  idiosyncrasies  and 
unsymmctrical  presentation  of  truth.  He  may 
preach  along  single  lines  that  are  attractive  to  him 
personally,  and  leave  whole  realms  of  truth  and  duty 
untouched. 

While  the  Bible  certainly  furnishes  no  precept 
here,  it  may  offer  much  suggestion  as  to  what  should 
be  at  the  centre  and  what  on  the  far  periphery  of 
preaching.  By  its  sheer  power  of  survival  the  Bible 
has  proved  its  power  of  perpetual  appeal  to  humanity. 
But  the  Biblical  emphasis  is  sharply  in  contrast  with 
that  of  all  text-books  in  philosophy  and  theology. 
They  make  central  what  is  logically  important; 
the  Bible  makes  central  what  is  vital  to  the  moral 
life.  They  seek  to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men; 
the  Bible  seeks  to  rectify  the  ways  of  men  in  accord- 
ance with  the  law  of  God.  The  text-books  are 
intent,  and  rightly,  on  building  up  a  defensible  sys- 
tem of  thought;  the  Bible  is  absorbed  in  imparting 
motive  to  life.  Hence  the  entire  approach  to  truth 
is  by  a  different  road,  and  the  whole  emphasis  is  on 
non- theological  aspects  of  truth  and  practical  aspects 
of  duty.  If  we  make  prominent  in  our  teaching 
that  which  has  small  space  in  the  Bible,  and  neglect 
that  which  has  great  place  in  the  Bible,  then  it  is 
at  least  probable  that  just  because  the  Bible  has 
gripped  the  conscience  of  humanity,  our  preaching 
will  fail  to  do  so.    Our  preaching  is  a  gospel,  not 


I06       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

a  theodicy.  If  the  Bible  gives  much  space  to  ex- 
pounding the  attributes  of  God  in  their  relation  to  his 
essence,  then  we  may  wisely  do  the  same ;  otherwise 
not.  If  it  argues  at  length  for  his  existence,  we  may 
spend  much  time  on  the  theistic  argument;  other- 
wise not.  If  the  prophets  and  apostles  have  much 
to  say  about  the  fall  of  man  and  original  sin,  we  may 
in  practical  preaching  do  the  same.  But  have  we 
ever  examined  the  Scriptures  to  see  what  space  those 
matters  actually  occupy?  The  federal  headship  of 
Adam  may  be  enormously  important  in  a  system 
of  theology;  but  since  Adam  is  never  mentioned  by 
Christ,  and  only  two  or  three  times  in  the  entire  New 
Testament,  he  cannot  be  a  very  important  factor 
in  Christian  preaching.  The  virgin  birth  of  Christ 
most  Christians  accept.  It  may  be  an  exceedingly  im- 
portant part  of  the  Christian  creed.  If  its  rejection 
implies  a  naturalistic  view  of  the  world  as  a  product 
of  blind  force,  then  such  rejection  is  perilous  to  faith. 
But  if  the  virgin  birth  is  mentioned  in  only  two 
places  in  the  entire  Scriptures,  and  was  apparently 
unknown  or  ignored  in  the  whole  apostolic  preaching, 
it  cannot  be  a  tenet  which  should  stand  in  the  fore- 
front of  Christian  preaching  to-day.  If  the  apostles 
gave  their  time  to  reconciling  religion  with  current 
views  of  the  physical  universe,  we  may  justly  believe 
that  the  growth  of  the  Kingdom  continually  requires 
such  reconciliation.  If  the  Bible  gives  much  space 
to  explaining  the  mysteries  of  creation,  or  to  publish- 


MODERN  USES  OP  ANCIENT  SCRIPTURE    10/ 

ing  a  program  of  divine  action  in  the  future,  we 
may  well  give  much  space  to  doctrines  of  cosmology 
and  eschatology.  A  noted  American  teacher  in  his 
**  Dogmatic  Theology"  has  devoted  eighty-seven  pages 
to  the  doctrine  of  hell,  and  three  pages  to  a  study 
of  heaven.  If  our  popular  preaching  has  reversed 
this  proportion,  it  has  come  nearer  to  the  perspective 
of  the  Bible.  The  conception  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  central  in  the  teaching  of  our  Lord,  had  in 
the  last  generation  nearly  dropped  out  of  sight  in 
our  American  preaching,  because  we  were  under  the 
dominance  of  classical  rather  than  Biblical  models, 
and  were  thinking  more  of  the  logic  of  Cicero  and 
Demosthenes  than  of  the  vision  of  the  prophets  and 
apostles.  We  cannot  indeed  copy  any  man  or  period. 
We  would  not  insist  that  every  truth  which  obtained 
emphasis  in  one  era  of  the  church  must  necessarily 
and  mechanically  receive  the  same  emphasis  in  all 
eras.  Many  of  the  Biblical  books  were  tracts  for 
the  times,  developing  aspects  of  truth  according  to 
the  urgent  needs  of  their  own  generation.  But  we 
do  affirm  that  the  Bible  by  its  power  to  survive  and 
transform  has  vindicated  the  essential  soundness  of 
its  method  and  the  justice  of  its  perspective.  The 
literature  which  has  fashioned  the  moral  climate  of 
the  civilized  world  may  at  least  suggest  to  us  what 
is  great  and  what  is  small  in  any  continuous  attempt 
at  moral  renovation.  A  Biblical  preacher  is  not  one 
who  repeats  Biblical  phrases,  but  one  who  takes  the 


I08       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

Biblical  standpoint,  acquires  the  same  perspective, 
and  feels  the  same  awful  sense  of  God,  the  same 
conviction  of  righteousness,  the  same  yearning  love 
for  men  as  that  which  made  the  ancient  prophet 

stand 

"Like  some  tall  peak,  fired  by  the  Creator 
With  the  red  glow  of  rushing  morn." 

One  further  use  of  the  Scriptures  we  must  not  for- 
get, —  we  need  them  for  the  formation  of  character 
in  childhood  and  youth.  Our  best  students  of  ped- 
agogy are  agreed  that  nowhere  else  is  there  such  ad- 
mirable material  for  moral  training  as  in  the  pictu- 
resque narratives  of  the  Bible,  with  their  simple  plots, 
vivid  coloring,  and  swift  sensitiveness  to  right  and 
wrong.  Mere  enunciation  of  rules  is  not  enough 
for  our  children  in  home  or  in  church.  Lectures  on 
moral  etiquette  are  often  wearisome,  and  may  pro- 
voke reaction.  But  the  Bible  stories,  presenting  in 
clear,  broad  outlines  the  issues  of  the  moral  life, 
are  beyond  those  to  be  found  in  any  other  literature. 
The  stories  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  will  always 
attract  young  people.  The  fables  of  JEsop  and  the 
German  Marchen  have  their  value  in  inculcating  a 
certain  shrewd  and  thrifty  alertness.  But  for  giving 
childhood  an  intelligent  understanding  of  ethical 
principles  applied  to  life,  there  is  no  literature  in 
the  world  like  the  stories  of  Joseph  and  Samuel  and 
David  and  Jesus.  They  furnish  us  with  a  series  of 
ideals  and  a  religious  vocabulary  that  is    beyond 


MODERN    USES   OF   ANCIENT   SCRIPTURE        ICQ 

price.  If  these  stories  are  stored  in  the  chambers 
of  imagery  in  early  childhood,  there  is  no  period  in 
life  which  they  will  not  illuminate  and  strengthen. 
To  discuss  the  duty  of  repentance  is  well,  but  to 
show  that  repentance  in  Peter,  in  David,  and  perhaps 
in  Esau,  is  better.  To  inculcate  abstract  benevo- 
lence is  helpful,  but  the  story  of  the  Good  Samaritan 
anticipates  all  the  wisest  methods  of  our  organized 
charity.  To  rebuke  intolerance  is  a  duty.  But  to 
show  that  intolerance  operating  in  John  when  he 
would  call  down  fire  from  heaven,  and  then  to  see 
the  same  man  slowly  transformed  into  the  apostle 
of  love  —  that  is  to  teach  Christian  charity  so  that  it 
shall  be  as  a  nail  fastened  by  a  master  of  assemblies. 
We  must  show  the  great  virtues  as  they  grew  up  in 
the  world,  as  they  emerged  in  human  consciousness. 
Better  than  any  formal  exposition  of  the  mutual  duty 
of  parent  and  child  is  the  picture  of  Jesus  remaining 
subject  to  wondering  parents,  and  yet  dreaming  ever 
of  the  Father's  business. 

Thus  the  minister  facing  his  vast  and  varied  task 
finds  vast  and  varied  equipment  in  the  Bible.  The 
sermons  of  the  Bible  must  be  re-preached  to  every 
nation  under  heaven,  not  by  servile  imitation,  not  by 
vain  repetition,  but  by  absorption  and  translation  of 
their  moral  passion.  The  types  of  thought  furnished 
in  the  Scriptures  are  manifold  and  furnish  material 
for  many  kinds  of  preachers  and  preaching.  Paul 
gives  us  one  type  of  thought  —  that  which  has  been 


no       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

largely  dominant  in  the  Christian  church  since  the 
reformation.  Peter  frankly  acknowledges  that  in 
"our  beloved  brother  Paul''  are  some  things  hard  to 
be  understood,  and  proceeds  to  develop  his  own  testi- 
mony as  one  who  was  with  Christ ''in  the  holy  mount." 
John  has  little  to  say  about  the  central  concepts  of 
Paul,  nor  does  he  view  the  world  from  the  standpoint 
of  Peter.  To  him  God  is  chiefly  conceived  not  as 
offended  sovereign,  not  as  impartial  judge,  not  even 
as  unseen  friend,  but  as  "light  in  whom  there  is  no 
darkness  at  all."  And  these  three  aspects  of  truth 
seen  through  the  medium  of  three  individual  person- 
alities meet  the  various  needs  of  various  men.  In 
some  one  of  the  three  apostles,  or  in  all  of  them,  the 
preacher  can  find  his  supreme  insight  and  stimulus. 
The  minister  who  draws  truth  from  such  sources 
will  never  think  of  it  as  a  dried  formula.  He  is  in 
constant  contact  with  truth  at  maximum  intensity, 
truth  pungent,  passionate,  compelling.  Sharp  as  an 
acid  is  the  irony  of  Isaiah  when  he  sketches  men 
fashioning  a  graven  image  and  falling  down  to  the 
stock  of  a  tree,  and  crying:  "Thou  art  my  God." 
Awful  is  his  reverence  and  self-surrender  as  he  cries, 
"Here  am  I;  send  me."  How  marvellous  is  the 
tenderness  of  Hosea,  as  through  his  broken  home  and 
domestic  tragedy  there  streams  into  his  soul  a  vision 
of  the  forgiving  love  of  God.  How  tremendous  is 
the  passionate  cursing  of  the  imprecatory  psalms, 
which  in  time  of  peace  we  expurgate  for  dainty  con- 


MODERN   USES    OF   ANCIENT   SCRIPTURE        III 

gregations,  but  which,  when  witnessing  the  woes  of 
Armenia  and  the  atrocities  of  the  Turk,  we  find 
all  too  weak  to  express  our  Christian  indignation  I 
How  rapturous  and  sublime  is  the  vision  of  John, 
as  from  his  rocky  island  he  looks  out  over  the  tossing 
^gean  and  catches  a  glimpse  of  the  time  when  the 
kingdoms  of  this  world,  east  and  west,  Roman, 
Egyptian,  Assyrian,  are  to  become  the  kingdoms 
of  our  Lord !  The  man  who  has  drawn  truth  from 
such  profound  experiences  feels  his  soul  aflame  as  he 
proclaims  it.  His  message  will  come  **  up  from  the 
burning  core  below."  While  he  respects  and  honors 
the  task  of  the  metaphysician  and  the  theologian, 
he  frankly  conceives  his  own  task  as  quite  dififerent. 
He  stands  between  the  history  that  is  finished  and 
recorded  and  the  history  that  is  making  to-day. 
Gathering  out  of  the  great  days  of  the  past  new  faith 
and  power  and  passion,  he  lights  his  altar  from  the 
ancient  fire,  and  may  yet  be  able  to  "  kindle  the  land 
into  flame  with  its  heat." 


IV 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  ETHICAL  LEADERSHIP 

"Let  men  beware  how  they  admit  a  great  religious  idea 
into  the  hidden  recesses  of  the  heart.  .  .  .  What  amazing 
social  changes,  what  wars,  revolutions,  empires,  common- 
wealths, lay  in  that  single  idea  of  the  priesthood  of  all  believers, 
of  justification  by  faith  alone.  .  .  .  Even  so  let  men  beware 
of  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom.  At  present  it  is  in  the  hands  and 
hearts  mainly  of  teachers  of  religion,  but  its  day  may  come 
in  the  great  open  field.  Revolutions  may  be  in  it  which  will 
make  the  earth  shake  and  ring,  wars  which  will  convulse  world 
sodety,  great  commonwealths  on  a  vaster  and  nobler  scale 
than  the  world  has  ever  known,  at  the  last,  perhaps,  a  new 
world -order  of  social  and  industrial  peace." 

—  D.  S.  Cairns. 


LECTURE    IV 

THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP 

The  sole  aim  of  Christianity  is  to  make  good  men. 
But  that  aim  is  so  simple  and  obvious  that  the  world 
has  found  it  quite  incredible.  The  world  has  con- 
stantly assumed  or  inferred  that  something  more 
abstruse  or  recondite  or  ethereal  must  be  the  Chris- 
tian goal  —  the  defence  of  some  intellectual  citadel, 
or  the  exposition  of  some  philosophy,  or  the  repeti- 
tion of  some  mystic  and  life-giving  rite.  Therefore 
we  cannot  too  often  repeat  that  all  rite  and  ceremony, 
all  creed  and  philosophy,  all  architecture  and  liturgy, 
are  but  transient  means  to  a  permanent  end  —  the 
making  of  good  men.  The  aim  of  Christianity  is 
ethical,  and  it  has  no  other  aim  whatever.  Good 
men,  constituting  a  good  society,  living  in  league 
with  all  goodness  human  and  divine,  —  this  is  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,  mentioned  oftener  in  the  four 
gospels  than  any  other  subject,  and  forming  the  cen- 
tral idea  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 

From  this  it  follows  that  one  of  the  main  functions 
of  the  minister  is  to  explain  what  goodness  is,  and 
make  it  imperative  and  alluring.  To  bring  and  hold 
men  face  to  face  with  the  Christian  ideal  of  life  until 

"5 


Il6       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

its  outlines  are  sharp  and  clear,  and  its  summons  is 
heard  like  a  trumpet  note,  is  the  preacher's  arduous 
and  necessary  task.  To-day  the  conscience  of  the 
Christian  world  is  at  the  same  time  aroused  and 
puzzled.  The  moral  sentiment  of  the  community  is 
baffled.  Our  desire  to  do  right  has  outrun  our  per- 
ception of  what  right  is.  Pilate's  question,  ''What 
is  truth?"  has  given  place  to  a  more  imperative  and 
bewildered  cry,  "What  is  justice?"  We  do  not 
now  need  to  create  ethical  passion  so  much  as  we 
need  to  "canaHze"  it,  to  construct  channels  which 
shall  guide  and  conduct  that  overflowing  passion  to 
just  and  permanent  results.  All  around  us  is  an 
enormous  amount  of  protest  against  injustice,  a 
protest  often  crude  and  blind  or  even  frantic,  but  a 
protest  which  proves  that  the  conscience  of  humanity 
is  still  mightier  than  all  economic  necessities.  Vari- 
ous socialistic  schemes  are  winning  their  way  among 
us,  not  because  of  their  superior  insight  or  knowledge, 
but  because  somehow  they  have  allied  themselves 
with  the  indomitable  demand  for  righteousness. 

Our  age  is  also  richer  in  altruistic  feeling  than  any 
generation  preceding.  The  mere  list  of  the  chari- 
ties of  the  modem  city  is  astonishing.  The  amount 
of  money  dispensed  is  large,  but  the  amount  of  time, 
deliberation,  organization,  and  painstaking  labor  in- 
volved is  far  more  impressive.  A  small  army  of 
visitors  is  entering  the  homes  of  the  poor.  Hundreds 
of  nurses,  with  quiet  voice  and  careful  step,  move 


THE   DEMAND    FOR   ETHICAL    LEADERSHIP      11/ 

in  and  out  among  the  sick  rooms  in  the  tenements. 
The  social  settlements  number  among  their  fortunate 
workers  some  of  the  noblest  and  ablest  men  and 
women  of  our  time.  The  warfare  against  tuber- 
culosis goes  steadily  on,  and  men  and  women  and 
children  are  attacking  infinitesimal  foes  with  the 
same  pertinacity  with  which  our  fathers  drove  out 
the  wolf  and  the  bear.  Specific  reforms  are  spring- 
ing up  in  every  region  of  the  country  and  calling  for 
our  allegiance.  The  whole  country  is  throbbing 
with  moral  heat,  and  the  old  Puritan  conscience, 
which  we  thought  overlaid  and  stifled  by  material 
prosperity,  is  summoning  our  entire  civilization  to 
account.  Such  an  era  offers  magnificent  opportunity 
to  the  Christian  minister.  The  very  fact  that  he  is 
not  a  specialist,  limited  to  a  little  section  of  thought 
or  action,  is  part  of  his  qualification  for  moral 
leadership.  The  teacher  of  physics  is  not  competent 
to  pronounce  on  ethical  problems,  the  economist  is 
silent  before  some  question  of  creed-subscription, 
the  expounder  of  the  creeds  has  no  help  to  offer  us 
in  deciding  as  to  care  of  dependents  and  defectives. 
But  the  minister,  inexpert  in  all  these  fields,  is  yet 
in  daily  contact  with  the  principles  which  underlie 
them  all.  The  very  fact  that  he  touches  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men,  that  he  is  called  on  to  address  and 
to  study  men  of  every  class  and  every  party,  should 
give  him  a  breadth  of  sympathy  and  sanity  of  out- 
look which  will  make  him  a  competent  guide  for  the 


Il8        EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

pulsating  moral  passion  of  our  time.  He  is  like  the 
ship-pilot,  who  could  not  himself  build  the  smallest 
craft,  but  who  knows  the  channel,  the  rocks,  the 
swift-running  tides,  and  can  conduct  thousands  of 
passengers,  all  wiser  than  himself,  in  safety  to  the 
port. 

Yet  in  this  great  ethical  revival  the  church  has  not 
been  conspicuously  leading.  The  church  has  passed 
through  a  great  revival  of  religion  without  knowing 
it.  It  has  been  a  revival  such  as  Isaiah  pictured: 
"Wash  you,  make  you  clean;  put  away  the  evil  of 
your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes ;  cease  to  do  evil, 
learn  to  do  well."  It  has  been  the  revival  demanded 
by  John  the  Baptist:  "Exact  no  more  than  that 
which  is  appointed  you."  But  the  churches  have 
been  surprised  at  the  movement,  for  they  were  not 
consciously  working  to  bring  it  about.  They  have 
been  laboring  conscientiously  on  the  old  indi- 
vidualistic lines,  seeking  to  deal  with  each  man  as 
if  he  were  an  isolated  sinner  to  be  transformed  into 
an  isolated  saint.  The  deacons  of  the  church  have 
shown  fine  eagerness  in  assisting,  out  of  the  monthly 
collection  for  the  poor,  some  woman  sapped  of 
strength  by  night  work  in  a  factory.  But  any 
attempt  to  enact  such  laws  as  shall  render  night 
work  for  women  impossible  —  that  is  hardly  yet 
recognized  as  distinctly  Christian  effort.  Church 
members  have  shown  genuine  brotherly  kindness 
to  the  poor  brakeman  crushed  between  the  cars, 


THE   DEMAND   FOR  ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP     II Q 

but  any  movement  to  secure  safer  appliances  for 
coupling  cars  has  been  looked  upon  as  purely  eco- 
nomic, or  possibly  political,  and  outside  the  realms 
of  recognized  church  activity.  We  have  gathered 
children  by  thousands  into  Sunday-school  for  in- 
struction in  Christian  truth,  and  this  is  surely  im- 
portant. But  have  we  inquired  how  many  hours 
those  children  are  working  in  stores  and  mills,  and 
have  we  made  any  organized  attempt  to  secure  for 
them  a  real  and  unstunted  childhood  ?  Is  it  Chris- 
tian to  teach  them  how  the  Israelites  were  "  made  to 
serve  with  rigor"  and  to  make  no  attempt  to  save 
them  from  the  more  terrible,  because  impersonal, 
rigor  of  modem  machinery  ?  In  temperance  reform 
the  church  has  always  taken  a  leading  part,  not  only 
in  securing  individual  signers  of  the  pledge,  but  in 
securing  better  customs  and  better  laws.  In  the 
matter  of  marriage  and  divorce  the  church  has  ut- 
tered no  uncertain  sound  in  many  of  its  great  as- 
semblies, and  has  been  both  spokesman  and  inspirer 
of  our  generation.  But  in  all  questions  afiFecting 
industrial  or  commercial  life  the  church  has  been 
strangely  silent.  Yet  it  is  precisely  these  questions 
which  present  the  chief  moral  issues  of  our  time. 
The  church  has  oflfered  pastoral  attention  to  the 
weary  shop-girl,  but  niade  no  attempt  to  better  the 
conditions  under  which  she  stands  all  day  behind  the 
counter.  It  has  assiduously  carried  comfort  and 
consolation  to  the  flushed  consumptive,  but  to  wage 


120       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

war  against  consumption  has  seemed  somehow  out- 
side the  Christian  sphere.  To  rescue  the  fallen  is 
clearly  Christian;  but  to  prevent  men  from  falling  — 
are  we  clear  that  this  is  a  task  still  more  deeply 
Christian?  We  have  poured  in  oil  and  wine  upon 
the  wounded  traveller;  but  to  take  stringent  measures 
to  prevent  other  travellers  from  being  wounded  in 
the  same  way  —  that  we  have  left  to  Herod  or  Pilate 
or  some  non-Christian  power.  But  if  we  leave  the 
great  preventive  philanthropy  and  reform  of  our 
generation  to  be  achieved  by  the  agnostic,  then  to 
agnosticism  our  generation  will  look  as  the  source 
of  moral  power. 

By  way  of  defending  the  church  in  its  inaction 
many  things  may  be  said.  It  may  be  affirmed,  and 
rightly,  that  the  church  as  a  venerable  institution 
must  not  hastily  ally  itself  with  untried  measures, 
must  not  become  a  mere  sociological  experiment  sta- 
tion. It  may  be  easily  shown  that  many  individual 
church  members  are  leaders  in  consumers'  leagues, 
in  civic  federations,  in  directorates  of  hospitals  and 
asylums.  It  may  be  said  that  if  other  and  non- 
Christian  organizations  will  do  this  helpful  human 
work,  the  church  is  thereby  set  free  for  its  own 
purely  spiritual  task. 

But  none  of  us  are  fully  satisfied  with  these  an- 
swers. Does  the  church  wish  to  be  set  free  from 
its  ministration  to  distress,  and  from  its  mission  as 
the  prophet  of  social  righteousness?    Would  not 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP     121 

that  be  like  setting  a  tree  free  from  its  own  branches, 
and  reducing  it,  lopped  of  all  foliage  and  fruit, 
to  a  mere  wooden  post?  **  Alasl  she  is  beautiful," 
cried  Heine,  as  he  bowed  before  the  Venus  de  Milo, 
"  but  she  has  no  arms  I "  But  a  church  without  arms 
is  not  even  beautiful,  because  she  is  not  Christian. 
The  church  cannot  indeed  assume  onmiscience 
in  complicated  social  problems.  It  cannot  justly 
attack  individuals,  attempting  to  anticipate  the  judg- 
ment of  the  searcher  of  hearts.  But  it  can  furnish 
the  basic  ethical  principles  by  which  all  problems  are 
to  be  solved  and  all  individual  careers  are  to  be 
tested.  It  is  not  the  business  of  the  church  as  an 
organization  to  bring  suit  against  the  saloon  keeper 
or  the  lottery  dealer.  But  it  is  the  business  of  the 
church  to  create  a  public  opinion  in  which  it  shall  be 
difficult  or  impossible  for  men  to  grow  rich  by  making 
others  poor.  It  is  not  the  duty  of  the  church  as  such 
to  investigate  the  trust  company.  But  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  church  to  emphasize  the  fiduciary  virtues, 
and  proclaim  that  all  business  responsibility  is  a 
trust  imposed  by  society.  There  is  no  other  organi- 
zation so  well  fitted  to  inculcate  the  great  elemental 
virtues,  and  develop  the  primary  motives,  as  is  the 
Christian  church.  There  is  no  other  individual  in 
the  community  so  clearly  called  to  ethical  leader- 
ship as  is  the  minister.  If  the  entire  aim  of  Chris- 
tianity is  to  make  good  men,  one  of  the  chief  duties 
of  the  minister  in  a  transitional  era  is  to  explain 
what  goodness  is. 


122       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

For  goodness  is  a  far  more  complicated  matter 
than  in  the  simple  patriarchal  age.  When  Abraham 
sat  at  his  tent-door  in  the  cool  of  the  day,  virtue  was 
indeed  difficult,  as  it  always  has  been  and  shall  be, 
but  it  was  far  simpler  than  now.  "Who  shall  abide 
in  thy  tabernacle  ?''  cried  the  Psalmist,  and  the 
answer  was  brief  and  definite:  "He  that  slan- 
dereth  not  ...  he  that  sweareth  and  changeth  not 
.  .  .  he  that  putteth  not  out  his  money  to  usury.  .  .  ." 
In  the  five  verses  of  the  15  th  Psalm  is  the  complete 
picture  of  the  good  man  in  ancient  Israel.  But  now 
the  world  is  so  crowded  that  each  life  touches  all 
lives,  and  each  man  sustains  a  multitude  of  re- 
lations to  his  fellow-men.  That  a  man  is  a  good 
husband  and  father  does  not  insure  his  being  a  good 
employer  of  labor  or  a  good  bank  president.  That 
he  is  a  model  son  to  his  aged  mother,  or  a  zealous 
officer  of  the  church,  furnishes  no  guarantee  that  he 
is  a  good  alderman  or  member  of  Congress.  The 
most  contradictory  codes  of  ethics  seem  to  exist 
side  by  side  in  the  personality  and  career  of  the  same 
individuals.  As  a  neighbor  a  certain  man  is  a  model ; 
but  as  a  business  competitor  he  may  "imitate  the 
tiger."  As  a  church  member  he  devoutly  and 
sincerely  recites  the  beatitudes;  as  a  Wall  Street 
operator  he  spurns  them  all.  Let  not  these  con- 
tradictions be  changed  to  hypocrisy,  any  more  than 
we  charge  John  Newton  with  hypocrisy  because  he 
wrote  Christian  hymns  on  the  deck  of  a  slave  ship. 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP      123 

There  is  no  more  deliberate  duplicity  in  our  day 
than  there  was  among  the  Puritan  churches,  when 
they  erected  their  meeting-houses  by  lottery  and 
installed  their  ministers  with  liberal  provision  for 
strong  drink.  But  there  is  a  confusion  of  moral 
standards.  There  is  an  idea  that  individual  honesty, 
purity,  affection,  can  be  a  substitute  for  corporate 
rectitude  and  social  trusteeship.  There  is  genuine 
agony  of  spirit  on  the  part  of  men  who  find  themselves 
in  such  a  network  of  relations  that,  whatever  course 
of  action  they  adopt,  they  must  hurt  some  innocent 
persons.  There  is  genuine  dismay  on  the  part  of  men 
who  have  for  years  followed  their  uninstructed  con- 
science, and  now  wake  up  to  find  themselves  pilloried 
as  traitors  to  society. 

The  man  who  thinks  it  easy  to  discern  justice 
to-day  has  not  lived  widely  or  deeply.  "Thou  shalt 
not  steal"  —  surely  we  all  accept  that  as  an  eternal 
principle  of  moral  life.  But  how  far  may  directors 
increase  the  capital  stock  of  an  industrial  enter- 
prise, or  how  far  may  they  withhold  dividends, 
without  stealing?  How  far  do  the  stockholders  in 
such  an  enterprise  become  responsible  for  the  acts  of 
such  directors  and  share  in  the  guilt,  as  well  as  the 
gain,  of  that  kind  of  stealing?  "Thou  shalt  not 
kill"  —  the  great  command  still  sounds  across  the 
ages.  But  if  I  persist  in  buying  at  the  bargain 
counter,  or  if  I  crowd  my  competitor  until  he  be- 
comes desperate,  is  that  killing  or  not?    "Lie  not 


124       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

one  to  another"  —  is  fundamental  Christian  teach- 
ing.  But  if  I  enter  the  ministry  by  giving  qualified 
assent  to  some  venerable  formula,  am  I  selling  the 
truth  to  buy  position,  or  am  I  simply  exercising  that 
reasonable  freedom  which  is  the  birthright  of  all 
true  children  of  the  Spirit? 

These  are  specimens  of  the  fundamental  problems 
of  our  age.  On  them  no  minister  can  be  silent  and 
claim  moral  leadership.  The  issues  of  life  are  be- 
fogged. Thousands  are  crying:  "How  can  I 
understand  except  some  man  should  guide  me?" 
And  to  say  that  all  that  men  need  is  a  good  heart,  is 
to  mock  their  deep  necessity.  They  need,  not  in- 
deed a  ductor  duhitantium,  in  the  mediaeval  sense,  but 
they  need  spiritual  guides  who  shall  see  underneath 
all  complications  and  confusions  the  eternal  moral 
verity,  as  the  geologist  discerns  the  primeval  granite 
beneath  the  rolling  hills  and  valleys. 

Why  then  are  our  ministers  furnishing  so  little 
ethical  guidance  in  these  problems?  It  is  not 
because  they  are  afraid  of  the  pews  —  a  slander  as 
baseless  as  it  is  ancient.  On  the  whole,  as  much 
courage  will  be  found  in  the  pulpit  as  in  any  post  of 
responsibility  in  the  world.  The  candid  minister 
has  far  less  to  fear  from  his  congregation  than  the 
candid  congressman  has  to  fear  from  his  constituency, 
or  the  candid  editor  from  his  subscribers.  No  such 
pressure  is  ever  put  on  any  minister  as  is  put  on  the 
mayor  of  every  city  in  order  to  shape  his  opinions 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP      12$ 

and  policies.  When  a  clear  choice  is  presented 
between  the  expedient  and  the  right,  the  ministers 
of  America  will  not  be  found  wanting.  It  is  not 
fear  of  consequences  that  holds  back  our  ministers 
from  fearless  ethical  leadership.  But  there  are  two 
influences  which  obWously  hinder  such  leadership, 
—  the  tradition  that  Christian  faith  is  a  series  of 
propositions,  and  the  tradition  that  Christian  morality 
b  a  series  of  prohibitions. 

"There  is  in  all  history,"  says  Principal  Fairbaim, 
"nothing  more  tragic  than  the  fact  that  our  heresies 
have  been  more  speculative  than  ethical."  ^  The 
propositions  which  are  the  intellectual  outcome  of 
life  have  been  regarded  as  the  origin  of  that  life. 
It  is  as  if  botany  were  looked  upon  as  the  origin  of 
flowers,  or  a  system  of  astronomy  were  regarded 
as  the  cause  of  the  movement  of  constellations.  A 
layman  recently  reported:  '*My  pastor  announced 
this  morning  that  there  are  seven  propositions  which 
a  man  must  believe  in  order  to  be  a  Christian.  Five 
of  those  propositions  I  cannot  believe,  and  about  the 
other  two  I  am  not  sure."  To  place  at  the  gateway 
of  the  Christian  life  the  propositions  which  are  the 
final  outcome  of  centuries  of  Christian  living  is  to 
invert  the  apostolic  method  and  to  shut  up  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  to  millions.  And  wherever 
Christianity  is  thus  identified  with  assent  to  prop- 
ositions, there  moral  issues  are  neglected,  and   the 

»  The  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion^  p.  565. 


126       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

supreme  interest  will  be  in  orthodoxy  rather  than  in 
rectitude. 

The  other  difficulty  lies  in  the  prohibitory  and  un- 
inspiring character  of  much  traditional  goodness. 
Too  often  has  the  Christian  attitude  toward  life 
been  represented  as  merely  one  of  protest.  We  have 
protested  against  intemperance,  against  Sabbath- 
breaking,  against  popular  recreations,  against  fri- 
volity; but  the  strength  of  Christianity  is  never 
in  what  it  prohibits,  but  in  what  it  affirms  and  exalts. 
A  prohibitory  code  may  produce  men  of  painstak- 
ing scrupulosity,  but  not  men  of  power  to  summon 
and  command.  "The  greatest  of  all  the  command- 
ments is,  Thou  shalt."  Goodness  is  emancipation 
and  positive  efficiency.  Goodness  is  not  keeping 
out  of  things  —  it  is  getting  into  things  and  trans- 
forming them.  It  is  strange  and  pathetic  how 
men  think  of  religion  and  its  prophets  as  barriers 
to  freedom.  They  imagine  that  scepticism  is  lib- 
erty and  achievement.  The  minister  must  come 
to  the  modem  world,  not  to  check  its  life  at  every 
step,  but  to  offer  that  life  such  direction  and  strength 
that  it  shall  be  brought  into  allegiance  to  the  high- 
est and  holiest,  and  shall  own  Christ  as  its  spiritual 
Master  and  Lord. 

If  now  we  realize  that  the  great  moral  enthusiasm 
of  our  time  needs  direction,  and  that  the  minister 
is  of  all  men  in  the  community  in  the  best  position 
to  direct  it,  we  have  still  to  ask :  How  can  he  secure 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP      12/ 

and  retain  moral  leadership?  What  are  the  chief 
requisites  in  the  moral  leader? 

Obviously  the  minister  must  preach  an  ethical 
gospel.  The  gospel  is  vastly  more  than  any  system 
of  ethics.  It  is  a  revelation  of  what  God  is  and  what 
God  has  done.  The  Christian  gospel  is  not  an  im- 
proved edition  of  the  maxims  of  Confucius,  or  a 
revision  of  the  duties  outlined  by  Buddha.  Most 
of  the  great  ethnic  faiths  are  laborious  systems  of 
self-improvement  —  elaborate  stairways  up  which 
the  penitent  may  painfully  climb  into  consciousness 
of  virtue.  The  Christian  gospel  starts,  not  with 
man,  but  with  God.  It  shows  us  a  descending 
stairway  down  which  the  divine  love  has  come  into 
our  low  estate,  and  back  of  all  its  commandments, 
great  and  small,  lies  its  perception  of  the  infinite 
attitude:  "God  so  loved  that  he  gave." 

But  our  exposition  of  that  gospel  must  not  fight 
against  the  primary  moral  convictions  of  humanity, 
or  blot  out  the  deepest  distinctions  of  the  moral 
universe.  It  is  quite  possible  to  hold  the  most 
vital  truths  in  such  a  way  as  to  encourage  the  evil- 
doer. Truths  are  not  blunt  and  dull  —  they  are 
two-edged  swords  which  may  cut  both  ways.  The 
doctrine  of  political  liberty  always  is  in  danger  of 
encouraging  revolution  and  anarchy.  The  doctrine 
of  the  guidance  of  the  church  by  the  Spirit  is  in  dan- 
ger of  being  interpreted  as  ecclesiastical  infallibility. 
Deep  is  the  meaning  of  the  fugitive  saying  of  Jesus : 


128       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

"He  who  is  near  me  is  near  the  fire."  It  is  quite 
possible  so  to  present  the  Christian  gospel  as  to 
make  it  a  scheme  for  blurring  moral  distinctions  and 
evading  the  moral  law.  The  "plan  of  salvation" 
which  dominated  Christian  thinking  for  a  thousand 
years,  which  represented  Christ  as  purchasing  human 
salvation  by  paying  a  ransom  to  Satan,  is  indeed 
picturesque  and  vivid,  and  was  easily  grasped  by 
the  imagination  of  the  barbarous  tribes  that  were 
baptized  into  the  Christian  faith.  But  to  gain 
vividness  it  sacrificed  ethical  reality.  Many  ques- 
tions must  have  arisen  in  sensitive  natures  all  through 
that  thousand  years.  Is  Satan  the  legal  owner  of 
humanity,  as  the  theory  represents?  Can  we  be- 
lieve that  Christ  thus  paid  homage  to  Satan's  power? 
Are  men  thus  ransomed  independently  of  their 
own  volition?  Is  such  a  sale  of  humanity,  even 
at  the  awful  price  named,  consonant  with  eternal 
justice?  Does  the  theory  make  the  government 
of  God  seem  more  deeply  ethical  and  the  death 
of  Christ  more  rational,  or  does  it  create  a  thousand 
new  difficulties  for  Christian  faith?  If  the  theory 
of  a  ransom  to  Satan  is  nowhere  held  to-day,  it  is 
simply  because  the  moral  consciousness  of  the 
Christian  world  has  sloughed  it  off  as  an  impedi- 
ment rather  than  a  genuine  interpretation. 

The  older  and  cruder  form  of  Universalism,  no 
longer  held  to-day,  which  represented  every  human 
being  as  translated  at  death  into  the  beatific  vision, 


THE    DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP      1 29 

has  dropped  out  of  sight  for  the  same  reason.  It 
contradicted  our  primary  convictions  as  to  cause 
and  effect,  as  to  the  continuity  of  character,  as  to 
the  seriousness  of  life. 

The  besetting  sin  of  the  popular  preacher  is  to 
sacrifice  the  true  to  the  picturesque  and  effective. 
Is  it  not  his  duty  to  impress  men  in  some  vivid  way 
so  that  they  will  not  forget  ?  Surely.  Then  the  ef- 
fective thing  must  be  the  true  thing;  so  argues 
the  popular  orator,  and  so  he  is  lamentably  mis- 
taken. What  is  immediately  and  rhetorically  ef- 
fective may  be  morally  defective  and  in  the  end 
pernicious.  In  dealing  with  the  relation  of  Christ's 
death  to  the  forgiveness  of  human  sin,  we  are  surely 
at  one  of  the  central  mysteries  of  history.  There 
is  a  side  of  that  sacrifice  which  is  like  the  back  side 
of  the  moon  —  it  is  turned  toward  the  firmament 
and  away  from  human  eyes.  But  in  dealing  with 
the  side  which  does  concern  us  it  is  easy,  in  the 
attempt  to  make  truth  vivid,  to  introduce  metaphors 
and  analogies  which  are  confusing  to  all  human 
standards  and  dishonoring  to  God. 

We  may  well  believe  that  an  awful  reverence  and 
a  profound  penitence  for  sin  underlay  the  following 
verse  when  it  was  sung  in  Puritan  churches: 

"Rich  were  the  drops  of  Jesus'  blood 
That  calmed  his  frowning  face; 
That  sprinkled  o'er  the  burning  throne, 
And  turned  the  wrath  to  grace." 

K 


130       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

But  did  any  one  of  all  the  thousands  who  sang  that 
hymn  acquire  from  it  a  deeper  conception  of  divine 
love,  or  a  deeper  insight  into  the  meaning  of  essential 
righteousness?  Would  that  conception  of  divine 
procedure  minister  to  justice  in  human  government, 
to  affection  in  family  life,  and  to  candor  in  ethical 
discussion  ? 

This  is  not  the  place  to  formulate  any  theological 
theory.  But  this  is  precisely  the  place  in  which 
to  say  that  any  gospel  we  present  must  honor  God 
by  upholding  the  eternal  distinctions  between  right 
and  wrong.  "Woe  unto  them  that  call  evil  good" 
—  is  there  not  a  double  woe  if  this  be  done  in  the 
name  of  religion?  The  Christian  gospel  is  not 
a  way  of  getting  into  heaven  without  character,  it 
is  not  a  way  of  violating  law  with  impunity,  it  is 
not  a  system  of  legal  fictions  and  evasions.  It  is 
not  belief  in  a  distant  forensic  transaction  in  which 
we  can  have  no  share.  It  is  a  way  of  *'rightening" 
men  by  bringing  them  through  faith  into  union  with 
the  Righteous  One,  whose  Hfe  and  death  reveal  the 
inexorableness  of  law  and  the  vicariousness  of  love 
as  nowhere  else  in  history.  After  we  have  done 
our  best  at  explanation  there  is  always  mystery  at 
the  heart  of  all  sacrifice,  human  or  divine.  But 
a  minister  who  is  to  be  an  ethical  teacher  must  at 
least  resolve  that  he  will  never,  in  order  to  be  vivid 
and  effective,  violate  the  deepest  convictions  of  our 
moral  nature,  or  dishonor  God  in  the  very  attempt 
to  bring  him  nearer  to  man. 


THE  DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP      I3I 

But  the  minister  must  also  thoroughly  compre- 
hend the  Christian  ideal  of  life.  We  cannot  avoid 
the  fact  that  the  Christian  ideal  is  in  our  time  frankly 
rejected  and  repudiated  by  thousands.  The  open 
opposition  of  Nietzsche  and  his  followers  is  a  great 
aid  to  a  clear  understanding  of  what  the  Christian 
life  is,  for  truth  is  never  sharply  defined  until  it  is 
rejected.  Nietzsche  gives  us  "biological  goodness" 
immitigated  by  Christian  sympathy.  He  points 
out  the  ruthless  struggle  of  the  subhuman  world, 
which  has  been  the  secret  of  progress.  In  that 
struggle  the  fittest  to  survive  is  the  best,  and  there 
is  no  other  meaning  in  the  word  best.  "  Nature  is 
red  in  tooth  and  claw,"  and  man  must  live  in  har- 
mony with  nature  and  act  out  his  strongest  desires. 
Hence  the  ten  commandments  are  simply  so  many 
impediments  to  self-realization.  Christianity  is  the 
chief  foe  to  achievement  and  progress.  "Sympathy 
preserves  what  is  ripe  for  extinction,  it  works  in 
favor  of  life's  condemned  ones,  it  gives  to  life  itself 
a  gloomy  aspect  by  the  number  of  ill-constituted 
it  maintains  in  life.  ...  It  is  both  a  multiplier 
of  misery  and  a  conservator  of  misery.  It  is  the 
principal  tool  for  the  advancement  of  decadence."  * 
But  the  man  of  strength,  the  Superman,  is  the  figure 
that  fascinates  Nietzsche's  disciples.  He  will  never 
fall  into  the  immorality  of  weakly  surrendering 
his  life  for  others.    He  will  never  indulge  the  sense 

*  Der  Antichrist,  }  7. 


132        EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

of  dependence,  the  instinct  of  worship,  and  the  grace 
(or  rather  disgrace)  of  humility.  He  will  abhor 
these  passive  virtues,  which,  preached  by  Christian- 
ity, have  for  nineteen  centuries  kept  alive  the  unfit 
and  prevented  the  truly  fit  from  realizing  their  own 
possibility.  Christian  morality,  Nietzsche  avers,  is 
"the  morahty  of  slaves."  ''What  is  the  supreme 
immorality?"  he  cries.  ''It  is  philanthropy  — 
Christianity."  There  are  few  better  tonics  than 
such  reading.  It  is  so  unblushingly  and  brutally 
pagan,  that  every  sentence  confirms  us  in  our  faith 
in  the  supreme  value  and  necessity  of  Christian 
ethics. 

But  the  popularity  of  this  philosophy  has  made 
it  influential  in  all  departments  of  life.  In  modern 
philanthropy  it  leads  to  a  reaction  from  the  old 
sentimental  and  lachrymose  charity,  and  to  the  prev- 
alent feeling  that  benevolence  may  be  keeping  aUve 
organisms  that  should  be  allowed  to  perish.  The 
biologist  usually  has  pronounced  views  on  the  duty 
of  allowing  the  unfit  to  die.  In  business  life  this 
theory  looks  upon  the  devouring  of  small  enter- 
prises by  large  ones  as  an  inevitable  and  on  the  whole 
beneficent  process.  The  average  man  is  not  fitted, 
says  this  theory,  to  secure  wealth  or  to  use  it.  There- 
fore the  few  must  be  the  possessors,  and  the  many 
must  serve. 

In  literature  this  philosophy  is  efflorescent  with 
epigram  and  paradox.    It  scoffs  at  the  old  ideas  of 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP     1 33 

sacrifice  and  duty,  as  fetters  to  genuine  manhood. 
It  imagines  that  evolution,  in  the  sense  of  brute 
struggle,  is  the  solution  of  all  problems  and  the  gate 
of  eternal  life.  The  highest  morality  is  self-as- 
sertion, the  supreme  law  of  life  is  laissez-faire. 
The  coryphaeus  of  this  school,  George  Bernard 
Shaw,  declares:  "The  Golden  Rule  is  that  there  is 
no  golden  rule." 

This  philosophy  in  international  relations  expounds 
the  view  that  a  few  great  nations  are  to  divide  up 
the  world,  and  that  tropical  lands  must  be  held  and 
exploited  by  those  in  the  temperate  zone.  It  looks 
with  contempt  on  the  half-civilized  races,  who  are 
by  blood  and  race-character  disqualified  for  free 
institutions,  and  views  them  purely  as  markets  or 
materials.  It  has  forsaken  the  standpoint  of 
Emerson's  **  Boston  Hymn,"  to  which  all  races  are 
avenues  of  the  infinite,  and  prefers  the  attitude  of 
Kipling,  to  whom  the  Oriental  races  are 

"the  silent,  sullen  peoples, 
Half  devil  and  half  chUd." 

Now  it  is  good  for  the  young  preacher  to  be  brought 
face  to  face  with  this  startling  renascence  of  pagan 
morals.  It  is  good  to  have  the  Christian  ideal  so 
sharply  challenged  that  we  are  driven  home  to  study 
it.  Nietzsche  and  Ibsen  are  our  helpers,  if  they 
give  us  stronger  hold  on  the  essential  principles  of 
Christian  living.    They  have  already  done  one  thing 


134       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

for  US.  They  have  made  us  reahze  afresh  that  the 
Christian  ideal  is  not  a  matter  of  observing  rules, 
but  of  attaining  and  preserving  an  attitude.  It 
is  not  conformity  to  regulation,  but  embodiment  of 
principles.  We  shall  never  vanquish  the  "Super- 
man" by  criticising  certain  things  he  has  done  or 
left  undone.  His  fundamental  principle  is  wrong, 
and  all  he  does  is  poisoned  by  that  central  blunder. 
The  difference  between  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  and  the 
Superman  is  not  that  one  gives  aid  to  the  weak  and 
the  other  does  not;  it  is  that  St.  Francis's  concep- 
tion of  what  weakness  and  strength  are,  is  totally 
reversed  in  the  Superman.  The  heaven  of  the  New 
Testament  is  the  hell  of  Nietzsche. 

The  Christian  is  not  a  man  who  can  keep  moral 
rules  better  than  other  men.  That  conception  is  mere 
legalism.  Such  a  life  is  complacent  but  wretched. 
**A11  these,"  it  cries,  "have  I  kept  from  my  youth 
up;  what  lack  I  yet?"  Rules  bind  the  soul  to 
the  past;  ideals  beckon  it  into  the  future.  Rules 
are  a  vis  a  tergo;  ideals  are  a  vis  a  fronte.  A  life 
of  obedience  to  rules  is  repressed  and  static  —  the 
better  the  rules,  the  more  effectually  the  life  is  re- 
pressed. A  life  of  the  incarnation  of  ideals  is  ever 
expanding  and  progressive.  The  Old  Testament 
is  full  of  superseded  rules,  such  as  the  prohibition 
of  certain  foods,  the  law  concerning  usury,  or  fasting, 
or  payment  of  tithes.  The  New  Testament  has  also 
its  rules  which  were  purely  temporary  and  local  — 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP     1 35 

regarding  woman's  silence  in  the  church,  or  regard- 
ing the  method  of  making  the  collection  for  poor 
saints  at  Jerusalem.  The  challenge  issued  to 
Christian  ethics  in  our  time  has  given  us  a  clear 
conception  of  character  and  attitude  as  deeper  than 
all  specific  regulations  and  obediences. 

And  this  Christian  character  stands  out  in  clearest 
outline  when  contrasted  with  other  historic  ideals 
of  manhood.  Aristotle  has  drawn  for  us  a  pro- 
foundly interesting  picture  of  his  own  ideal  —  the 
magnanimous,  the  "  great-souled  '*  man.  "  The  mag- 
nanimous man  appears  to  be  he  who  being  really 
worthy,  estimates  his  own  worth  highly.  .  .  . 
Whatever  is  great  in  any  virtue  belongs  to  the  mag- 
nanimous character.  .  .  .  Magnanimity  is  a  kind 
of  ornament  of  the  virtues.  .  .  .  Magnanimous 
men  have  the  appearance  of  superciliousness.  .  .  . 
The  magnanimous  man  wishes  to  be  superior.  .  .  . 
inclined  to  do  but  few  things,  but  those  great  and 
distinguished  ...  he  is  bold  in  speech  and  there- 
fore apt  to  despise  others,  and  is  truth-telling  except 
when  he  uses  dissimulation;  but  to  the  vulgar  he 
ought  to  dissemble.  ...  He  is  not  apt  to  admire, 
for  nothing  is  great  to  him.  .  .  .  He  is  not  dis- 
posed to  praise;  and  therefore  he  does  not  find 
fault  even  with  his  enemies,  except  for  the  sake  of 
wanton  insult.  .  .  .  He  is  apt  to  possess  what  is 
honorable  and  unfruitful,  rather  than  what  is  fruit- 
ful and  useful;  for  this  shows  more  self-sufl5ciency. 


136       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE    MINISTRY 

The  step  of  the  magnanimous  man  is  slow,  his  voice 
deep,  and  his  language  stately;  for  he  who  only 
feels  anxiety  about  few  things  is  not  apt  to  be  in 
a  hurry;  and  he  who  thinks  of  nothing  is  not 
vehement."  ^ 

Such  a  character,  admirable  as  some  of  the  out- 
lines may  be,  self-contained  and  self-controlled  and 
conscious  of  strength,  is  yet  so  far  outgrown  to-day 
that  we  are  curious  to  know  how  it  could  have  con- 
tented the  Greeks.  This  self-conscious  personage, 
serene  in  his  superciliousness,  and  moving  across 
his  local  stage  with  histrionic  and  stately  tread,  is 
he  the  far-off  ancestor  of  the  modern  Superman? 
How  impossible  to  write  beneath  his  portrait :  "Not 
to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister!"  The 
Greek  philosopher  could  not  conceive  humility 
as  a  virtue.  To  him  it  was  the  self-abasement  of 
a  mean  and  servile  spirit.  The  ''absence  of  the 
sense  of  the  infinite  in  Greek  ethics"  largely  accounts 
for  this.  Where  there  is  no  infinite  goodness  or 
obligation  against  which  a  man  must  measure  him- 
self, humility  becomes  a  mere  belittling  of  one's  self, 
and  so  of  others.  But  where  the  eternal  goodness 
rises  before  men  as  an  imperative  and  inspiration, 
humility,  i.e.  the  perception  of  the  difference  be- 
tween what  we  are  and  what  we  may  be,  becomes 
the  root  of  all  noble  character  and  a  constant  witness 
to  the  real  dignity  of  man. 

1  Nicomachean  Ethics,  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  III. 


THB   DEBfAND   FOR   ETHICAL    LEADERSHIP      1 37 

Sixteen  hundred  years  later  another  ideal  of  human 
life  was  set  before  the  world  in  Thomas  k  Kempis*s 
"Imitation  of  Christ."  Quotation  is  superfluous 
from  a  book  which  has  passed  into  the  fibre  of  the 
Christian  world,  and  which  has  been  the  model  for 
a  thousand  manuals  of  devotion.  The  intensity  of 
its  allegiance  to  the  unseen,  its  eager  longing  for 
holiness,  its  passionate  self-abnegation,  its  triumph 
over  the  lust  of  the  eye  and  of  the  flesh,  gave  it  a  place 
on  George  Eliot's  table  for  years  after  she  had  lost 
her  own  faith.  Yet  does  it  satisfy  us  as  an  inter- 
pretation of  the  Christian  ideal?  Is  it  a  veritable 
translation  of  Christ's  life  into  the  life  of  later  cen- 
turies, or  is  it  far  removed  from  the  Son  of  Man  who 
came  eating  and  drinking?  Listen  to  the  almost 
fierce  arraignment  of  Dean  Milman:  **The  Imita- 
tion of  Christ  begins  in  self,  terminates  in  self. 
The  simple  sentence,  'He  went  about  doing  good,' 
is  wanting  in  the  monastic  gospel  of  this  pious 
zealot.  Of  feeding  the  hungry,  of  clothing  the 
naked,  of  visiting  the  prisoner,  even  of  preaching, 
there  is  profound,  total  silence.  That  which  dis- 
tinguishes Christ,  —  Christ's  religion,  —  the  love  of 
man,  is  entirely  and  absolutely  left  out.  Had  this 
been  the  whole  of  Christianity,  our  Lord  himself, 
with  reverence  be  it  said,  would  have  lived  like  an 
Essene,  working  out  or  displaying  his  own  sinless 
perfection  by  the  Dead  Sea,  not  on  the  Mount,  nor 
in  the  Temple,  nor  even  at  the  Cross."  * 

» History  0/  Latin  ChristianUy,  Bk.  XIV,  Chap.  3. 


138        EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN    THE    MINISTRY 

Here  again  it  is  good  to  have  an  accepted  ideal 
roughly  challenged.  How  shall  we  evaluate  ethi- 
cally the  contemplative  life,  so  exalted  by  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  ?  Shall  we  dethrone  it  and  trample 
it  in  the  dust,  that  we  may  exalt  the  "strenuous 
life"  in  its  place  ?  Is  the  ideal  Christian  of  k  Kempis 
a  model  or  a  monstrosity?  An  ethical  teacher  of 
our  generation  must  be  able  to  answer  these  ques- 
tions, and  support  his  answer  out  of  the  Christian 
documents  and  the  history  of  Christian  faith. 

Five  centuries  after  Thomas  k  Kempis  died, 
another  ideal  of  life  was  given  to  the  world  by 
Benjamin  Franklin.  No  man  has  more  firmly 
imprinted  himself  on  American  conduct  or  more 
deeply  touched  the  springs  of  American  character. 
And  he  has  done  this,  not  so  much  by  the  events 
in  his  public  career  as  by  his  proverbial  philosophy 
and  by  his  autobiography.  The  great  service  he 
rendered  to  the  infant  republic  does  not  concern  us 
here;  we  are  now  concerned  only  with  his  ideal  of 
character  and  inner  achievement.  The  autobiog- 
raphy recounts  his  laborious  and  detailed  plans  for 
self -improvement.  It  shows  us  the  famous  copy- 
book; the  thirteen  virtues  which  he  practised,  one 
of  them  each  week,  and  each  one  four  times  in  the 
fifty-two  weeks  of  the  year.  It  shows  us  a  man  with 
no  spiritual  vision,  seriously  polishing  up  his  own 
character  that  he  might  be  presentable  to  his  own 
conscience.     But    it    is   in   the   maxims   of    "Poor 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL    LEADERSHIP      1 39 

Richard"  that  Franklin  most  clearly  reached  and 
shaped  American  character.  Those  homely  gnomic 
sayings  appealed  to  the  shrewd  sense  of  pioneers 
in  a  new  world  as  the  quintessence  of  practical 
wisdom.  But  are  we  satisfied  with  a  life  modelled 
after  those  precepts?  A  man  brought  up  to  find 
the  wisdom  of  life  in  such  sayings  as  **  A  bird  in  the 
hand  is  worth  two  in  the  bush"  and  "A  stitch  in 
time  saves  nine"  —  is  he  our  ideal  hero?  In  such 
prudential  virtue,  in  such  shrewd  thriftiness,  devoid 
of  any  shred  of  altruistic  feeling,  do  we  find  the 
solution  of  our  problems  and  the  fulfilment  of  our 
better  nature?  Or  is  there  a  whole  region  of  as- 
piration and  vision  and  motive  as  far  above  the 
autobiography  and  the  maxims  of  Franklin  as  the 
wide  and  starry  sky  is  above  the  paved  prosaic  street  ? 
The  ethical  leaders  of  our  time  must  pronounce 
some  judgment  on  the  ideals  of  Poor  Richard,  and 
so  on  those  which  lie  at  the  root  of  American 
success. 

What,  then,  is  the  Christian  ideal?  It  is  the 
characteristic  of  Christianity  that  its  ideal  is  not 
embodied  in  verbal  statements,  but  in  a  life.  The 
Christian  ideal  is  Christ.*  To  be  a  Christian  is  to 
absorb   and   share   his   attitude   toward   God   and 

*  "  It  would  not  be  easy,  even  for  an  unbeliever,  to  find  a  better 
translation  of  the  rule  of  virtue  from  the  abstract  into  the  concrete 
than  to  endeavor  so  to  live  that  Christ  would  approve  our  life." 
—  John  Stuart  Mill,  Essays  on  Rdigum^  p.  255. 


140       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

man.  It  is  no  mere  servile  and  outward  imitation 
of  his  garb  or  speech,  or  even  of  his  sacred  baptism 
and  pathetic  supper  in  the  upper  chamber.  It 
is  to  regard  as  real  what  was  real  to  him,  to  love 
what  he  loved,  to  hate  as  he  hated,  to  find  in  the 
Father  what  he  found,  and  to  reaffirm  his  valuation 
of  life.  But  his  central  conception  is  that  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  a  brotherhood  of  spirits  over 
which  God  is  king  because  he  is  Father,  a  brother- 
hood whose  supreme  law  is  love,  and  in  whose 
fellowship  and  service  each  man  develops  his  own 
highest  personality.  The  ancient  antagonism  be- 
tween self-development  and  self-sacrifice  is  solved 
in  this  Kingdom,  where  each  individual  is  both 
means  and  end.  The  opposition,  quite  as  ancient, 
between  morality  and  religion,  vanishes  in  the 
presence  of  the  idea  that  every  smallest  duty  is 
to  be  performed  ''for  my  sake,"  that  is  as  an  ex- 
pression of  the  divine  life  revealed  most  clearly 
in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  point  at  which  the  Christian  ideal  most 
sharply  breaks  with  that  of  Aristotle  and  Plato 
and  Franklin  and  Nietzsche  is  in  making  love,  rather 
than  justice,  the  centre  of  the  moral  life.  Plato's 
Republic  is  avowedly  a  search  for  political  justice. 
Nietzsche's  protest  against  human  pity  is  founded 
on  the  injustice  of  subjecting  the  strong  to  the 
necessities  of  the  weak.  The  demand  of  the  socialist 
in  every  age  is  for  the  establishment  of  justice  in 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP      I4I 

institutions  and  laws  and  in  the  entire  social  order. 
"Not  charity,  but  justice"  is  the  bitter  cry  that 
has  become  familiar.  But  those  who  would  pass 
over  human  sympathy  and  affection  in  order  to 
establish  abstract  and  impersonal  justice  know  not 
what  they  ask.  A  society  which  is  merely  just,  and 
nothing  more,  would  be  such  a  society  as  we  find 
among  the  wooden  pieces  in  a  game  of  chess  — 
mere  juxtaposition  without  kinship  or  fellowship.  Is 
not  each  piece  on  the  chessboard  free  from  oppression 
by  any  other  piece  ?  Is  not  the  smallest  pawn  pro- 
tected in  its  movements  by  the  ancient  laws  of  the 
game?  Are  not  chance  and  favoritism  well-nigh 
excluded?  Is  not  each  game  a  logical  process  in 
which  full  justice  is  done  to  the  supposed  abilities 
of  every  piece  ?  Yes,  —  and  the  result  is  a  de- 
humanized association  of  wooden  blocks,  and  a 
procedure  in  which  all  human  feeling  is  irrelevant 
and  impertinent.  "In  the  course  of  justice  no  one 
of  us  should  see  salvation,"  or  satisfaction,  or  growth, 
or  gladness. 

But  in  exalting  love  —  which  ceases  to  be  love  if 
it  becomes  unjust  —  Christ  penetrates  the  central 
need  of  man  and  of  society.  He  exalts  no  mere 
maudlin  sentiment,  no  weak  acquiescence  in  popular 
demands.  Love  in  his  eyes  is  not  childishness,  nor 
is  it  senility.  It  is  as  pure  and  searching  as  a  flam- 
ing fire.  There  are  no  demands  in  the  universe 
so  stringent  as  those  made  by  love.    The  love  of  a 


142       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

mother  for  her  loyal  son  is  more  feared  by  him  than 
are  all  the  policemen  of  a  city.  The  love  of  the  wife 
for  her  husband  lays  upon  him  requirements  far 
beyond  any  statute-book.  The  love  of  a  soldier 
for  his  country  evokes  from  him  heroic  deeds  such 
as  no  court  or  legislature  would  dare  demand. 
Love  is  always  just;  but  it  is  justice  aflame  with 
human  tenderness,  and  eager  to  give  itself  to  hu- 
manity that  thus  it  may  find  itself  reborn  in  nobler 
life.  Justice  gives  to  others  according  to  their 
rightful  claim;  love  gives  according  to  its  utmost 
power  to  bestow. 

When  the  minister  begins  to  apply  this  ideal  to 
the  movements  and  institutions  of  our  age,  he  be- 
comes the  ethical  teacher  we  need.  He  at  once 
exalts  service  as  the  keynote  of  daily  living.  He 
views  every  owner  of  property  as  a  trustee,  every 
employer  as  the  counsellor  and  helper  of  labor, 
every  office-holder  as  the  servant  of  the  people, 
every  man  of  strength  as  the  divinely  ordained 
protector  of  the  poor  and  the  weak.  He  puts  to 
every  business  man  the  old  question  which  once  cast 
a  lurid  glare  into  the  mind  of  Judas,  "Friend, 
wherefore  art  thou  come?"  He  brings  modem 
industry  to  the  bar  of  the  Christian  ideal  of  social 
service.  What  does  a  man  enter  business  for? 
Is  it  to  make  money  ?  No  soldier  would  for  a  mo- 
ment acknowledge  that  as  the  object  of  his  service 
in  the  army.     If  we  can  prove  him  guilty  of  that 


THE   DEBfAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP      I43 

aim,  we  strip  off  his  uniform  and  dismiss  him  from 
the  ranks.  No  physician  would  for  a  moment 
acknowledge  the  financial  aim  as  supreme.  If 
we  suspected  him  of  working  mainly  for  that  end, 
we  should  exclude  him  from  our  homes.  No 
clergyman  or  missionary  would  calmly  confess  to 
such  an  aim.  If  we  discerned  in  him  such  an 
ambition,  we  should  pay  no  heed  to  his  message. 
Why  is  it  that  the  modem  world  tolerates  in  the 
business  man  an  object  in  life  which  it  pronounces 
inconceivable  in  the  case  of  the  true  soldier,  or 
physician,  or  missionary?  Simply  because  modem 
business  is  not  yet  ethicized.  It  is  still  on  the  plane 
of  Poor  Richard.  It  is  below  the  level  of  service 
rendered  by  the  commonest  soldier,  who  when  he 
dons  the  uniform  of  his  country  resolves  to  scoff  at 
gain,  and  live  for  honor,  loyalty,  and  the  common- 
wealth. The  object  of  the  baker  should  be  to  feed 
the  hungry;  of  the  clothier,  to  clothe  the  naked; 
of  all  men  in  industrial  pursuits,  to  render  to  the 
commimity  some  valuable  public  service.  We  al- 
ready realize  this  aim  in  the  calling  of  the  college 
professor,  of  the  trained  nurse,  of  the  members  of 
a  fire  department.  Why  should  the  fireman  who 
rescues  our  goods  from  a  burning  store  be  expected 
to  live  —  or  die  —  from  a  higher  motive  than  the 
man  who  sells  the  goods  behind  the  counter?  Why 
are  heroism  and  self-sacrifice  and  public  spirit  so 
rarely  seen  as  to  be  never  expected  in  commercial 


144       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

transactions?  What  we  need  is  not  a  new  index 
of  forbidden  things  in  business  life,  but  a  new 
spirit  shot  through  the  whole  of  it  —  the  spirit  of 
the  soldier,  the  fireman,  the  apostle.  At  the  bar 
of  the  Christian  ideal  all  business  based  purely  on 
the  love  of  gain  is  an  anti-social  enterprise,  differing 
legally,  but  not  morally,  from  the  work  of  the  bandit 
and  the  pirate.  Whoever  is  not  for  the  common- 
wealth is  against  it. 

The  Presbyterian  church  of  our  time  has  taken 
a  notable  step  forward  in  organizing  a  department 
of  labor.  For  the  church  to  ignore  utterly  the 
organization  of  labor  is  to  be  ignorant  of  one  of 
the  most  significant  developments  of  the  age,  and 
one  charged  with  moral  meaning.  Why  have  these 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  come  together? 
Is  it  in  the  spirit  of  class  warfare,  to  extort  higher 
wages  for  men  in  the  union,  and  to  drive  out  of 
employment  and  out  of  the  city  every  man  who  will 
not  be  coerced  into  joining  the  union?  Is  the  old 
ecclesiastical  persecution  of  heretics  by  means  of 
the  thumb-screw  and  the  rack  now  replaced  by  the 
industrial  persecution  which  prefers  the  boycott 
and  the  bomb?  Or  are  these  unions  doing  the 
fraternal  work  which  the  church  itself  under  other 
conditions  might  do,  and  laboring  unselfishly  for  the 
uplifting  of  all  wage-earners  in  the  modern  world  ? 

I  have  stood  on  Boston  Common  on  Sunday 
afternoon  and  heard  the  socialist  orators  stir  their 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL    LEADERSHIP      1 45 

hearers  to  a  white  heat  by  their  picture  of  a  social 
order  in  which  poverty,  injustice,  and  exploitation 
shall  be  unknown.  I  have  seen  far  greater  ethical 
enthusiasm  in  those  little  groups  of  unkempt  and 
uncouth  hearers  than  in  the  decorous  and  reverent 
congregations  that  assembled  at  the  same  hour  in 
the  costly  houses  of  worship  just  across  the  street. 
What  is  the  ethical  worth  of  this  socialistic  sen- 
timent now  spreading  through  Christendom?  Is 
it  simply  the  desire  of  the  House  of  Want  to  divide 
up  the  goods  of  the  House  of  Have?  Or  is  it  the 
far-ofiF  echo  of  the  primitive  Christian  enthusiasm, 
and  the  time  when  no  man  said  that  aught  which  he 
possessed  was  his  own?  The  ethical  teacher  must 
have  conviction  here,  or  he  is  a  belated  and  be- 
fogged instructor. 

So  it  is  with  the  whole  realm  of  civic  duty,  to  which 
Christian  teachers  are  now  awaking  after  long 
silence.  That  silence  was  never  preserved  in  the 
heroic  ages  of  the  church.  Silence  on  public  issues 
was  never  observed  by  English  Puritanism,  nor  by 
the  early  colonial  preachers  in  America.  But  some- 
how in  the  nineteenth  century  a  strange  paralysis 
crept  over  our  pulpits  in  the  presence  of  public  or 
national  issues.  All  questions  involving  the  welfare 
of  the  people  as  a  whole  were  labelled  **  politics," 
and  the  minister  consented  not  to  touch  them,  save 
possibly  on  Thanksgiving  Day.  A  silence  not  de- 
manded by  the  churches  was  observed  by  the  min- 


146       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

isters  in  the  supposed  interest  of  a  spiritual  mes- 
sage. Yet  Paul,  in  those  ethical  discussions  which 
occupy  the  last  part  of  every  letter  he  ever  wrote, 
frankly  and  fearlessly  discussed  the  burning  problems 
of  his  time.  He  plunged  into  the  moral  aspects  of 
marriage,  of  putting  away  a  heathen  wife,  of  the 
Christian  attitude  toward  payment  of  taxes,  toward 
magistrates,  toward  the  emperor,  of  the  Christian 
attitude  toward  labor  in  view  of  the  approaching  end 
of  the  stage.  Matters  of  woman's  dress,  of  the  place 
of  widows  in  the  social  order,  of  the  relief  of  the 
poor,  of  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  state, 
are  freely  discussed  by  the  apostle  as  one  who  had 
the  mind  of  Christ. 

We  are  coming  to  realize  that  an  unworthy  citizen 
cannot  be  a  good  Christian.  When  a  Nero  is  on  the 
throne.  Christian  cooperation  with  the  powers  that 
be  is  indeed  difficult.  But  living  as  we  do,  in  a 
Christian  nation,  whose  chief  magistrates  have 
almost  without  exception  confessed  the  Christian 
faith,  we  must  make  for  civic  duty  a  large  place  in 
the  Christian  life.  Long  enough  has  the  inactivity 
of  the  best  meant  the  opportunity  of  the  worst  men. 
Long  enough  have  Christian'  men  without  protest 
submitted  to  the  irresponsible  political  dictator, 
who  degrades  men  to  the  level  of  his  purposes,  but 
will  not  lift  them  to  the  level  of  his  opportunities. 
No  minister  need  attack  any  political  candidate  of 
any   party.     Every   minister   must   attack   steadily 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP      1 4/ 

and  persistently  every  form  of  graft  and  chicanery, 
and  steadily  and  persistently  exalt  the  idea  of  public 
office  as  a  public  trust.  The  fine  and  delicate  sense  of 
honor  which  pervaded  the  ages  of  Christian  chivalry 
must  come  back  to  us  and  replace  the  "law- honesty," 
whose  only  motive  is  fear  of  the  penal  code.  Our 
good  men  must  be  good  for  something.  Our  saints 
are  not  to  be  statues  awaiting  translation  to  some 
divine  art  gallery,  but  soldiers  of  the  common  good. 
The  separation  of  church  and  state,  which  we  all 
believe  in,  necessitates  the  closest  possible  union  of 
citizenship  with  religious  principles.  In  the  ancient 
world  every  great  civic  duty  was  conceived  as  an 
act  of  worship.  The  election  of  magistrates,  the 
promulgation  of  new  laws,  the  sailing  of  the  fleet, 
the  return  of  the  conquering  general  —  all  these 
events  were  attended  with  prayer  to  the  unseen 
powers.  Every  Athenian  youth  when  he  came  to 
the  threshold  of  manhood  stood  in  the  presence  of 
the  chief  officers  of  the  city  and  took  the  famous 
"oathof  theEphebi": 

"I  will  not  dishonor  my  sacred  arms.  I  will  not  desert  ray 
fellow-soldier,  by  whose  side  I  may  be  set.  I  will  leave  my 
country  greater  and  not  less  than  when  she  is  committed  to 
me.  I  will  reverently  obey  the  laws  which  have  been  es- 
tablished and  in  time  to  come  shall  be  established  by  the  judges. 
I  will  not  forsake  the  temples  where  my  fathers  worshipped. 
Of  these  things  the  gods  are  my  witnesses." 

Do  we  call  that  Paganism?  Whatever  its  name, 
it  is  precisely  the  spirit  we  need  to  inculcate  from 


148       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

every  Christian  pulpit  to-day,  —  the  indissoluble 
blending  of  patriotic  devotion  and  religious  faith. 
But  religion  cannot  stop  with  devotion  to  the 
fatherland;  its  expansive  power  drives  it  beyond 
political  boundaries  and  compels  it  to  work  for  the 
federation  of  the  world.  The  Christian  teacher 
cannot  ignore  the  question  of  the  mutual  relation  of 
civilized  states.  He  may  not  be  an  expert  in  inter- 
national law,  but  he  must  have  deep-seated  convic- 
tions regarding  international  ethics.  All  around  us 
are  voices  proclaiming  that  Christian  principles  do 
not  apply  to  the  relations  of  sovereign  states.  It  has 
even  been  affirmed  that  no  moral  obligation  rests 
upon  the  state  save  that  of  justice.  Truth,  honor, 
fideUty,  generosity,  sacrifice,  are,  we  are  told,  purely 
individual  virtues  which  no  state  can  be  expected 
to  exemplify  when  they  stand  in  the  way  of  its  ag- 
grandizement. "None  of  the  ties  which  bind  man 
to  man,"  says  Professor  Ruemelin,  "can  join  state  to 
state.  Although  ideal  aims  and  purposes  should 
certainly  be  considered  and  cherished  by  different 
nations,  in  reality  the  latter  confront  one  another 
as  in  a  state  of  nature,  i.e.  as  strangers,  compelled 
to  be  wary  and  distrustful,  like  wanderers  meeting  in 
a  desert."  ^    The  conception  of  wanderers,  or  rather 

^  The  extent  to  which  this  Neo-Machiavellianism  is  willing  to 
go  may  be  seen  from  further  quotation:  "A  neighboring  state 
may  be  afflicted  and  in  great  distress,  caused  by  natural  dis- 
turbances, by  hostile  invasion,  or  by  internal  dissensions.     The 


THE  DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL   LEADERSHIP      1 49 


VV 


savages  meeting  in  a  desert,  is  hardly  the  ideal 
which  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  Hague  Tribunal.  It 
is,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  a  conception  which  no 
teacher  of  ethics  can  for  a  moment  admit  as  valid 
or  even  human.  To  say  that  moral  laws  apply  to 
individuals,  but  not  to  states,  is  like  saying  that  the 
law  of  gravitation  holds  with  regard  to  falling  stones 
and  trees,  but  not  with  regard  to  Arcturus  and  Orion. 
If  there  be  any  man  or  nation  so  great  as  to  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  law  of  love,  then  that  law 
is  itself  defective  and  unworthy  of  our  highest 
allegiance.  But  if  that  law  be  indeed  a  universal 
obligation,  then  it  will  show  its  sweep  and  scope 
most  superbly  when  a  nation  becomes,  in  Milton's 
phrase,  "one  huge  Christian  personage,  one  mighty 
growth  or  stature  of  an  honest  man."  From  such 
a  standpoint  England  aiding  struggling  Greece,  and 
the  United  States  springing  to  the  relief  of  Cuba, 
are  simply  examples  "writ  large'*  of  the  principles 
which  moved  Sir  Philip  Sidney  at  Zutphen,  or  Robert 
Gould  Shaw  at  the  head  of  his  colored  regiment. 

decision  of  the  question  whether  our  own  state  shall  offer  assist- 
ance depends,  not  upon  the  extent  of  the  neighbor's  need,  but 
solely  upon  the  inquiry  whether  the  rendering  of  such  assistance 
would  or  would  not  be  compatible  with  our  own  best  interests. 
There  may  be  circumstances  causing  us  to  rejoice  over  the  weaken- 
ing of  a  neighboring  state  and  impelling  us  to  derive  a  selfish 
advantage  therefrom,  nay,  even  to  strike  an  aggressive  blow.  .  .  . 
We  have  of  necessity  released  the  state  from  all  obligations  sanc- 
tioned by  love."  —  Professor  Gustav  Ruemelin,  PolUics  and 
tiu  Moral  Law,  p.  34. 


150       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

Here,  then,  is  the  fascinating  field  that  opens  out 
before  the  modern  preacher.  He  cannot  if  he  would, 
he  would  not  if  he  could,  ignore  the  great  moral  issues 
which  are  fiercely  debated  by  his  generation,  and 
which  from  time  to  time  cause  social  upheaval  and 
re-arrangement  of  social  strata.  The  minister  must 
proceed  with  sanity  and  calmness,  and  only  after 
adequate  study.  He  is  not  ordinarily  to  deal  with 
individual  men  and  measures,  as  is  the  candidate 
for  public  office.  But  he  is  to  feed  and  nourish  the 
moral  sense  of  the  community  out  of  the  great  store- 
houses of  the  past.  He  is  to  challenge  sharply 
all  theories  and  poHcies  which  antagonize  the  laws 
of  human  justice  and  love.  He  is  to  interpret  the 
Galilean  teaching  into  terms  of  present  life.  He  is 
to  explain  what  in  the  gospel  narrative  is  transient 
custom  or  local  rule,  and  what  is  eternal  law.  He 
is  to  point  out  impartially  and  fearlessly  the  ethical 
dangers  which  inhere  in  all  groupings  of  labor  or 
capital,  and  in  all  new  movements,  social  or  civic, 
fraternal  or  religious.  He  is  to  summon  his  fellow- 
men  to  that  aggressive  fighting  for  the  right  which  is 
"the  greatest  sport  in  the  world."  He  is  to  assume 
by  virtue  of  conviction  and  position  the  place  of 
natural  guardian  of  the  weak,  the  defenceless,  the 
forgotten,  the  widow,  and  the  orphan.  He  is  to 
champion  human  rights,  and  in  the  same  breath  to 
insist  on  human  duties.  He  is  to  make  all  men  see 
that  the  Kingdom  he  represents  is  no  insubstantial 


THE   DEMAND   FOR   ETHICAL    LEADERSHIP      I5I 

pageant  faded,  but  is  the  deepest  and  divinest  of 
realities,  and  that  every  man  in  the  community  may 
find  in  the  service  of  that  Kingdom  a  task  big  enough 
and  arduous  enough  to  employ  forever  his  highest 
powers. 

A  man  with  this  conception  of  his  calling  can  never 
become  a  mere  functionary  of  ecclesiastical  routine. 
He  has  a  task  that  is  inexhaustible  and  magnificent. 
He  is  prophet  of  God*s  great  to-morrow  and  educa- 
tor of  the  conscience  of  humanity. 


THE  SERVICE  OF  PSYCHOLOGY 

"Every  child  must  live  out  completely  every  complete 
stage  of  childhood,  or  he  can  never  develop  into  complete 
maturity."  —  Froebel. 

"  At  first  the  effect  of  psychology  is  to  encourage  the  notion 
that  everything  is  mechanical  and  that  no  place  is  left  for 
personal  force  and  will.  The  very  regularity  of  nature  revives 
belief  in  fate.  Further  insight,  however,  shows  that  we  do  not 
have  to  choose  between  persons  and  law,  but  that  personality 
itself  is  the  most  perfect  example  of  law." 

—  George  M.  Stratton. 


LECTURE  V 

THE   SERVICE   OF    PSYCHOLOGY 

The  charter  of  Brown  University,  granted  by  the 
colonial  legislature  in  1764,  includes  a  remarkable 
statement  regarding  the  character  of  the  instruction 
to  be  given  in  the  infant  college:  "The  public  teach- 
ing shall  in  general  respect  the  sciences."  Such  a 
declaration,  made  before  the  American  revolution,  in 
an  institution  intended  at  first  largely  for  the  train- 
ing of  ministers,  anticipates  with  almost  prophetic 
insight  the  attitude  of  the  twentieth  century.  But 
we  respect  the  sciences,  not  when  we  pick  out  isolated 
facts  in  chemistry  or  botany  as  illustrations  of  truths 
in  another  realm,  but  when  we  utilize  the  methods 
and  results  of  science  in  the  solution  of  our  life- 
problems.  And  of  all  the  sciences  there  is  none  that 
comes  closer  to  the  minister's  task  than  that  of  psy- 
chology. He  may  be  innocent  of  physics  or  geology 
without  serious  detriment.  But  the  sciences  that 
deal  with  man  —  biology,  anthropology,  sociology, 
psychology  —  are  either  the  baseless  fabric  of  a 
vision,  or  they  are  vital  to  the  minister's  under- 
standing of  his  task.  The  application  of  psychology 
to  education  has  illuminated  and  sometimes  trans- 

155 


156       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

formed  the  art  of  teaching.  What  service  can  it 
render  to  the  task  of  the  preacher  ? 

At  the  outset,  let  us  beware  of  extravagant  claims. 
Psychology  is  itself  in  process  of  transformation, 
and  like  any  half-grown  and  ambitious  youth  is  not 
yet  fitted  to  serve  as  arbitrator  in  all  discussion. 
Experimental  psychology  has  been  sometimes  pushed 
to  extremes.  The  questionaires  that  have  flooded 
the  land  have  made  Hfe  a  burden.  Child-study 
has  sometimes  superseded  child-love  and  guidance. 
Pedantry  has  laboriously  devoted  itself  to  proving 
by  statistics  that  children  delight  in  dolls  and  prefer 
the  games  which  every  mother  has  taught  her  child 
since  the  days  of  the  cave-men. 

We  must  also  be  careful  not  to  lose  the  minister 
in  the  psychologist.  The  detached  scientific  atti- 
tude of  the  experimenter,  who  necessarily  views  all 
experience,  even  the  most  vital  and  sacred,  as  mere 
material  for  research,  is  antipodal  to  the  attitude  of 
the  true  pastor.  Vivisection  has  its  uses,  but  is 
especially  perilous  when  the  experiments  are  in  the 
realm  of  soul.  All  sensible  men  would  flee  from  the 
minister  who  regards  our  whispered  confidences  as 
so  much  material  for  his  latest  questionaire,  and 
labels  our  penitence  and  aspiration  as  specimens  in 
his  religious  museum. 

Moreover,  it  must  be  said  that  the  successful 
preachers  and  leaders  of  men  have  always  been 
psychologists,    whether    consciously    or    not.     The 


THE  SERVICE  OP  PSYCHOLOGY       I  $7 

essence  of  psychology  is  insight  into  the  workings  of 
other  men*s  minds  —  and  such  insight  has  marked 
all  great  orators,  teachers,  and  organizers.  The  old 
phrenology  was  a  crude  attempt  to  systematize  and 
explain  our  instinctive  judgments  regarding  our 
fellow-men.  The  orator  who  begins  by  reminding 
a  hostile  or  suspicious  audience  of  some  conviction 
that  he  and  they  hold  in  common,  may  never  have 
heard  of  "apperception,"  but  he  has  the  essence 
of  the  doctrine.  The  speaker  who  rests  his  audience 
at  regular  intervals,  by  pause  or  change  of  subject, 
or  the  insertion  of  something  in  lighter  vein,  may 
never  have  studied  "  voluntary  attention,"  but  he  has 
learned  by  experience  what  such  attention  is  and 
how  to  hold  it.  The  sermons  of  Charles  Haddon 
Spurgeon  were  marvellously  persuasive,  not  because 
of  scholarship  or  novelty  or  weight  of  thought,  but 
because  of  their  extraordinary  psychological  insight, 
their  intuitive  apprehension  of  how  the  average 
man  thinks,  hopes,  fears,  and  battles  with  himself. 
D wight  L.  Moody  may  never  have  heard  of  the  "psy- 
chology of  the  crowd,"  but  he  had  learned  it  beyond 
all  the  teaching  of  our  laboratories,  and  the  subtle 
sway  of  emotional  reaction  over  vast  assemblies  was  to 
him  a  matter  of  daily  experience.  Many  an  efficient 
preacher  is  like  Molifere's  hero,  who  was  amazed  to 
find  that  he  had  always  talked  prose  without  knowing 
it.  We  want  the  thing  itself,  not  the  label.  We 
want  a  working  knowledge  of  men,  whether  the 


158       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

knowledge  comes  from  laboratory  or  library  or  farm 
or  factory,  and  whether  we  call  such  knowledge 
psychology  or  common  sense. 

With  these  caveats,  we  may  say  frankly  that  no 
man  who  proposes  to  change  the  mental  attitude  and 
character  of  his  fellow-men  can  afford  to  neglect 
the  flood  of  light  shed  on  his  problems  by  modem 
psychology.  The  public  school-teachers  of  this 
country  have  found  their  task  transfigured  by  this 
new  light,  and  all  their  conventions  and  periodicals 
are  aglow  with  the  fervor  of  new  discovery.  Here 
and  there  a  theological  seminary  has  been  pene- 
trated by  the  study  of  applied  psychology,  but  on 
the  whole  our  ministerial  education  is  not  yet  utiliz- 
ing the  new  knowledge  to  any  appreciable  degree. 
What  help  has  this  modem  science  for  the  modem 
preacher? 

I.  It  has  demonstrated  beyond  question  or  cavil 
the  reality  of  religious  experience.  Twenty-five 
years  ago  it  was  the  custom  of  many  men  versed  in 
philosophy  and  science  to  look  down  with  pity  on 
the  experience  of  religion,  as  either  pure  hallucination 
and  mythology,  or  as  due  to  neurotic  conditions  which 
returning  health  would  dissipate  completely.  Such 
interpretation  of  religious  phenomena  governed  the 
old  rationalistic  exegesis  of  Scripture.  Many  a 
German  theologian  dealt  with  certain  phenomena 
recorded  in  the  book  of  Acts  as  if  such  occurrences 
must  have  been  sheer  illusion,  when   similar  phe- 


THE  SERVICE  OP  PSYCHOLOGY       1 59 

nomena  arc  familiar  to-day  to  every  man  who  has  ever 
attended  a  camp-meeting  or  has  studied  the  life  of 
Charles  G.  Finney.  Professor  James,  in  his  "  Varie- 
ties of  Religious  Experiences,**  is  only  the  leader  of 
many  writers  who  have  vindicated  forever  the  reality 
and  normality  of  that  inner  upheaval  and  readjust- 
ment to  the  unseen  which  the  church  has  called  con- 
version. Such  writers  in  affirming  that  the  highest 
character  is  "twice-born**  are  returning  almost  to 
the  exact  metaphor  of  the  gospel  of  St.  John.  By 
long  and  patient  study  of  experiences  once  classified 
by  medicine  as  abnormal  and  neurotic,  they  have 
shown  us  that  underneath  all  the  strange  mani- 
festations which  have  baffled  our  predecessors  lie 
the  eternal  needs  and  the  imperious  demands  of  our 
human  nature. 

These  students  have  become  "assertors  of  the 
soul"  in  a  new  and  deep  sense  of  the  words.  They 
are  affirming  that  what  the  church  calls  "conviction 
of  sin,*'  "hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,'* 
"change  of  heart,"  is  no  pathological  condition, 
much  less  an  illusion,  but  is  a  crisis  in  the  growth 
of  the  normal  human  being,  as  reasonable  and  nec- 
essary as  the  bursting  of  a  bud  into  flower  or  the 
swift  flushing  of  the  sky  at  dawn.  Of  course  a  dis- 
ciple of  naturalism  may  go  farther,  and  affirm  that 
having  ascertained  the  presence  of  law  in  religious 
experience  we  no  longer  have  reason  to  see  in  it  any 
divine  working.     But  such  an  inference  is  unwar- 


l60       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

ranted.  Precisely  the  opposite  conclusion  should 
be  drawn.  When  we  have  ascertained  the  process, 
we  have  not  touched  upon  its  cause.  To  show  the 
how  of  things  is  not  to  give  even  a  glimpse  of  the 
why.  To  explain  the  ticking  of  a  watch  is  not  to 
wind  it  up.  A  man  who  sees  no  God  anywhere  will 
of  course  not  find  him  in  the  experience  of  religion. 
He  will  find  only  "psychoses"  and  "neuroses"  and 
illustrations  of  his  favorite  thesis  that  human  life 
is  nothing  very  wonderful  after  all.  But  one  who 
finds  God,  as  we  do,  in  every  sparrow  that  falls,  will 
find  him  still  more  clearly  in  every  man  that  rises. 
We  see  the  divine  in  the  normal  unfolding  of  the 
world  and  in  those  great  crises  of  the  soul  which 
are  essential  to  its  normal  development.  Psychology 
has  fortified  evangelism  in  the  last  ten  years,  and 
given  it  a  permanent  place  in  any  possible  advance 
of  the  church.  It  has  affirmed  in  clearest  voice  that 
the  horror  of  sin,  the  thirsting  of  the  soul  for  God, 
the  battle  with  the  "flesh,"  the  "peace  that  passeth 
understanding,"  are  not  figments  of  the  imagination, 
are  not  psychopathic  phenomena,  but  are  experiences 
always  found  where  religion  becomes  a  vital  power 
in  humanity,  and  that  the  soul  that  has  never  passed 
through  some  crucial  decisions  in  the  spiritual  realm 
is  in  a  condition  of  arrested  development.  Grotesque 
as  many  forms  of  its  expression  may  be,  the  reality 
and  reasonableness  of  a  supreme  religious  choice  is 
to-day  a  part  of  the  creed  of  the  thinking  world. 


THE  SERVICE  OF  PSYCHOLOGY       l6l 

2.  Psychology  has  with  equal  clearness  shown  us 
the  unreality  of  many  conventional  sins  and  tradi- 
tional virtues.  Often  have  we  blamed  children  for 
restlessness  and  disorder  in  school  or  church,  little 
realizing  that  such  proofs  of  inner  activity  were  the 
most  encouraging  signs  that  can  come  to  any  teacher. 
Many  men  now  living  can  remember  being  taught  at 
the  age  of  six  or  eight  years  to  sing : 

"There  is  rest  for  the  weary, 
On  the  other  side  of  Jordan, 
There  is  rest  for  you." 

But  the  last  thing  in  the  world  that  normal  children 
want  is  rest.  They  want  to  run  and  shout  and  play 
and  toil  —  the  one  aspiration  which  they  could 
not  possibly  cherish  was  inculcated  as  the  mark  of 
youthful  piety.  The  passive  and  inert  goodness  of 
the  old-fashioned  Sunday-school  book,  the  putty- 
like receptivity  of  the  boy  who  did  no  wrong  merely 
because  he  had  not  courage  or  energy  enough  to  do 
it,  —  all  that  has  become  to  our  best  teachers  un- 
desirable and  inhuman.  In  every  Mohammedan 
school  the  children  study  aloud,  and  the  buzz  of  sub- 
dued voices  fills  the  air.  Is  not  that  quite  as  rational 
an  idea  of  discipline  as  that  which  once  made  the 
school  a  place  of  folded  arms,  and  whispering  almost 
a  crime  ? 

Frequently  children  have  been  punished  for  false- 
hood, when  they  have  simply  yielded  to  a  naturally 
strong  imagination,  with  no  thought  of  deceiving 


1 62       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

any  one.  The  child  that  has  never  seen  more  than  the 
bare  facts  in  an  adventure,  more  than  science  can 
find  in  the  forest,  or  more  than  the  written  record  in  a 
Biblical  story,  is  a  being  of  poor  vitality  and  deficient 
imagination.  If  instead  of  forbidding  the  imagina- 
tion to  work  we  can  feed  it  with  nourishing  mate- 
rial, then  we  shall  have  in  later  life  young  men 
who  can  see  visions  and  old  men  who  can  dream 
dreams. 

Many  of  us  can  recall  the  conventional  virtues 
that  were  inculcated  in  many  an  isolated  community 
in  early  New  England  history.  The  Christian  life 
was  identified  with  abstention  from  certain  amuse- 
ments or  occupations  and  with  routine  performance 
of  certain  acts.  Handed  down  from  generation 
to  generation,  a  stereotyped  formula  of  Christian 
virtue  came  to  have  binding  authority.  To  attend 
church,  to  read  the  Bible  in  course  from  beginning 
to  end,  to  observe  Sunday  by  refraining  from  all 
pleasure,  to  support  the  "means  of  grace"  —  these 
duties  were  so  easily  expounded  and  any  infraction 
so  easily  detected,  that  they  were  exalted  into 
supreme  tests  of  character.  A  man  might  keep 
slaves,  or  adulterate  his  sugar,  or  bear  false  witness 
against  his  neighbor,  without  a  tithe  of  the  obloquy 
which  he  must  face  for  failure  to  observe  the  tradi- 
tional routine.  A  man  might  be  hard  at  a  bargain 
without  trouble ;  but  if  he  indulged  in  "  amusements*' 
or  found  enjoyment  in  the  woods  on  Sunday,  he  was 


THE  SERVICE  OF  PSYCHOLOGY       1 63 

branded  as  a  religious  outcast.  Our  own  moral 
standards  are  too  defective  for  us  to  reflect  severely 
on  our  fathers.  But  at  least  we  may  say  this:  we 
have  gotten  into  more  vital  contact  with  moral  reality. 
Any  observance  which  genuinely  expresses  human 
need,  or  supplies  it,  is  forever  a  duty;  and  any  ab- 
stention which  is  merely  a  thoughtless  repetition  of  the 
abstentions  of  the  past  is  but  a  shadowy  and  unreal 
virtue  which  the  soul  can  safely  neglect. 

3.  Another  gain  from  the  newer  psychology  is  a 
knowledge  of  the  mutual  inter-relation  and  inter- 
dependence of  mind  and  body.  To  the  older 
"mental  philosophy"  the  mind  was  a  sovereign, 
imprisoned  briefly  in  a  ** frail  tenement  of  clay." 
Hence  the  task  of  the  preacher  was  simply  by  logi- 
cal demonstration  of  truth  to  convince  the  mind  and 
enable  it  to  triumph  over  the  body.  But  to  the  mod- 
em minister,  body  and  soul  constitute  the  single 
personality,  and  Browning  scarcely  exaggerates 
when  he  cries : 

"Nor  soul  helps  flesh  more  now  than  flesh  helps  soul." 

Insight  into  this  fact  shapes  the  minister's  entire 
attitude  toward  individuals  who  need  counsel  and 
direction.  The  spectres  of  the  mind  may  be  due 
to  microbes  in  the  blood.  Cowardice  and  recre- 
ancy, doubt  and  fear,  often  have  their  origin  in  a 
sluggish  circulation.  Slight  surgical  operations  may 
have  far-reaching  effects  on  moral  character.     The 


1 64       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

removal,  for  example,  of  adenoids  from  a  fretful 
child  has  frequently  removed  the  cause  of  constant 
irritation  and  depression,  and  so  effected  a  vital 
change  in  character  and  disposition.  Pessimism 
has  physical  roots,  and  Carlyle's  ''three  million  men 
in  London  —  mostly  fools,"  was  the  utterance  not 
only  of  the  brain  but  of  the  liver.  To  save  souls  is 
our  duty  only  if  we  use  the  word  in  the  fine  old  English 
sense  —  the  sense  of  the  Old  Testament.  When  we 
read  that  "all  the  souls  which  came  with  Joseph  into 
Egypt  .  .  .  were  threescore  and  six,"  we  are  sure 
that  what  went  down  into  Egypt  was  not  a  company 
of  invisible  essences,  not  a  group  of  shadows  or 
monads,  but  a  company  of  living,  breathing  per- 
sonalities, with  minds  and  bodies  and  raiment  and 
food  and  cattle.  Souls  in  that  sense  —  beings  in 
spiritual,  mental,  physical,  social  relations  —  we  are 
to  save. 

But  conversely,  the  dependence  of  the  body  on  the 
mind  is  vastly  greater  than  either  theology  or  medi- 
cine has  ever  been  willing  to  admit.  The  immense 
vogue  of  certain  religious  varieties  of  mental  healing 
to-day  is  due  to  the  reluctance  of  religion  and  medicine 
to  acknowledge  the  facts  of  psychology.  It  is  the 
palpable,  but  hitherto  ignored  or  derided,  facts  of 
human  experience  that  give  Christian  Science  all 
its  power,  and  make  it  one  of  the  vital  religious 
movements  of  our  generation.  When  thousands  of 
persons  all  around  us  are  indisputably  cured  of 


THE   SERVICE   OF   PSYCHOLOGY  1 6$ 

certain  ills  by  mental  means  only,  it  is  in  vain  to 
object  because  the  cures  are  not  wrought  by  gradu- 
ates of  our  medical  or  divinity  schools.  Granted  that 
the  philosophy  which  underlies  the  movement  is  but 
shreds  and  patches,  that  all  true  science  is  want- 
ing, that  all  rules  of  syntax  are  broken,  that  many 
cures  are  temporary  or  illusive  —  it  still  remains  true 
that  thousands  are  healed.  The  extent  to  which 
our  varied  physical  ills  are  the  direct  result  of  varied 
fears,  we  are  only  beginning  to  realize.  The  mental 
bondage  induced  by  anxiety  over  to-morrow  and 
regret  over  yesterday  is  inevitably  and  constantly 
reflected  in  bodily  conditions.  The  suggestion  of 
fatigue  almost  universally  induces  fatigue.  The  con- 
dition of  mental  uncertainty,  harassment,  despair, 
invariably  affects  the  entire  circulation,  and  so  the 
condition  of  all  the  nerves  and  the  functioning  of 
every  organ.  On  the  other  hand,  the  release  from 
physical  congestions,  inhibitions,  and  even  morbid 
growths,  that  may  be  brought  about  by  setting  free 
the  mind  from  "the  perilous  stuff  that  preys  upon 
it,"  is  far  greater  than  either  science  or  faith  has  yet 
recognized.  Most  of  us  are  only  half  living  our  lives, 
little  suspecting  the  powers  that  sleep  within  us.  We 
seem  to  imagine  that  the  only  means  of  physical 
recuperation  is  through  the  drugs  which  our  best 
physicians  now  use  as  little  as  possible.  We  are 
amazed  when  under  the  inspiration  of  religious  faith 
some  martyr  no  longer  feels  the  fire,  or  St.  Paul 


1 66       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

shakes  ofiF  the  viper  and  feels  no  harm,  or  some 
modern  Christian  undergoes  a  bodily  regeneration 
which  appears  miraculous.  These  are  the  common- 
places of  religious  biography,  and  a  religion  that  has 
no  place  for  them,  and  no  expectation  of  them,  is 
narrow  and  inhuman. 

Sensitiveness  to  pain  has  in  modern  life  often 
replaced  the  Puritan  terror  over  sin.  The  fear  of 
future  woe  which  oppressed  Bunyan,  after  his  per- 
fectly innocent  indulgence  in  games  on  the  village 
green,  finds  its  present  analogue  in  the  fear  of  poisoned 
blood  and  palsied  limbs  and  mental  break-down 
which  now  shadows  and  desolates  millions  of  human 
lives.  The  baseless  fear  in  the  one  case  was  removed 
by  the  vision  of  the  great  love  of  God  manifest  in 
the  sacrificial  life  and  death  of  Christ.  The  base- 
less fears  of  present-day  victims  may  be  removed  by 
the  vision  of  the  immanent  Spirit,  closer  to  us  than 
our  doubts  and  fears,  source  of  order  and  harmony 
and  peace,  filling  body  and  soul  with  health  and 
gladness.  A  faith  which  cannot  work  these  physical 
and  psychical  changes,  but  leaves  its  devotees  to  a 
formal  profession  of  beliefs,  and  to  a  daily  life  anx- 
ious, obstructed,  joyless,  and  defeated,  is  not  the 
faith  that  overran  the  Roman  empire  in  three  cen- 
turies. The  religion  of  Christ  gave  and  forever  will 
give  to  its  adherents  some  control  over  all  condi- 
tions of  mind  or  body  that  threaten  their  highest 
happiness  and  efiiciency.      How  far   that   control 


THE   SERVICE   OF   PSYCHOLOGY  167 

may  go,  no  wise  man  cares  to  say  in  advance  of 
experience. 

How  far  the  church  should  formally  enter  the  realm 
of  mental  therapeutics,  and  attempt  to  employ  the 
methods  of  suggestion  and  hypnosis,  is  a  question 
still  sub  judice.  If  it  be  demonstrated  that  mental 
dissociation  and  moral  impotence  can  be  reached  by 
purely  psychic  forces  —  at  least  we  may  say  that 
the  church  must  "by  all  means  save  some."  In  a 
realm  where  deception  is  so  easy,  and  assumption  so 
rife,  and  scientific  knowledge  as  yet  so  small,  we 
must  proceed  with  peculiar  caution.  It  is  best  at 
present  that  a  few  ministers  or  physicians  and  a 
few  churches  should  make  adequate  experiment, 
and  that  all  of  us  should  preserve  the  open  mind. 
The  genuine  faith-healing  is  that  which  uses  all 
possible  means,  physical,  medical,  mental,  and  moral, 
rejecting  nothing  that  God  has  placed  within  reach, 
and  trusting  in  nothing  except  as  it  becomes  the 
vehicle  of  the  divine  and  all-pervading  life.  But 
few  candid  students  can  doubt  that  we  are  on  the 
verge  of  great  enlargement  in  our  understanding 
of  the  powers  of  men.  Delusion  is  easy;  but  the 
greatest  of  all  delusions  is  to  suppose  that  we  have 
already  explored  and  dissected  and  labelled  all  the 
conscious  and  subconscious  contents  of  the  human 
spirit.  We  have  explored  just  far  enough  to  learn 
that  much  that  we  have  called  incredible  is  occurring 
daily  all  about  us.    To  the  psychologist  many  of 


1 68        EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

the  cures  ordinarily  called  marvellous  are  not  only 
credible,  but  are  to  be  sought  for  and  expected. 
The  intimate  blending  of  mental  and  physical  in 
one  unitary  personality,  the  constant  dependence  of 
character  on  its  physical  basis,  the  utter  transforma- 
tion of  the  body  through  a  change  in  mental  states 
—  these  are  facts  taught  in  every  psychological  class- 
room, facts  which  should  lie  at  the  basis  of  a  minis- 
ter's entire  career. 

Such  facts  explain  the  ** stigmata"  of  Francis  of 
Assisi;  they  furnish  the  clew  to  the  physical  phe- 
nomena which  often  have  accompanied  genuine 
revivals  of  religion;  they  may  even  throw  light  on 
the  methods  of  our  Lord,  as  when  he  put  clay  on 
the  eyes  of  the  blind  man  or  touched  the  tongue  of 
the  dumb.  If  it  be  true  that  bodily  activity  always 
accompanies  mental  movement,  as  when  the  cir- 
culation is  quickened  by  anger  or  by  joy;  if  it  be 
true  that  the  bodily  state  conditions  the  soul  and 
shapes  the  character ;  then  these  facts  will  determine 
the  preacher's  whole  attitude  toward  the  physician, 
the  social  settlement,  the  public  park,  the  play- 
ground, the  fresh-air  fund,  and  the  hospital.  No 
man  can  intelligently  repeat,  "I  believe  in  the  res- 
urrection of  the  body"  unless  he  believes  in  the 
preservation  and  development  of  the  body  as  a 
primary  religious  duty.  No  man  can  accept  the 
narratives  of  Christ's  miracles  of  healing  without 
making  the  physical  upbuilding  of  his  congrega- 
tion a  part  of  his  own  pastoral  function. 


THE  SERVICE  OP  PSYCHOLOGY       1 69 

4.  Such  a  conviction  of  the  unity  of  personality 
will  necessarily  shape  a  preacher's  method  in  arous- 
ing and  holding  the  attention  of  his  congregation. 
Any  man  can  secure  attention  for  a  few  Sundays  — 
but  can  he  hold  it  for  twenty  years  ?  Any  man  can 
secure  absorbing  interest  by  sensationalism  in  speech 
or  garb  or  action;  but  the  penalty  of  using  strong 
spices  is  that  the  quantity  of  spice  must  be  con- 
stantly increased  to  stir  the  jaded  palate.  Mere 
exhortation  soon  becomes  wearisome  to  him  that 
gives  and  him  that  takes.  Physical  fervor  will 
not  long  serve  as  substitute  for  ideas.  Pulmonary 
eloquence  soon  exhausts  itself  and  its  audience. 
A  hortatory  pulpit  is  futile  except  as  based  on  con- 
stant instruction.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the 
old-fashioned  "application"  and  ** appeal"  at  the 
end  of  the  sermon  have  now  largely  vanished. 
The  application  should  come  all  the  way  through. 
The  strongest  possible  appeal  is  a  vivid  perception 
and  presentation  of  the  truth.  Make  men  see,  and 
you  have  made  ihem  feel.  *'I  did  see  all  heaven 
opened  before  me,"  said  Handel,  as  he  told  of  his 
writing  the  Hallelujah  Chorus,  **  and  heard  the  angels 
harping  with  their  harps."  "The  lion  hath  roared," 
cried  Amos  after  his  vision;  "who  shall  not  proph- 
esy?" But  how  shall  a  man  retain  and  impart 
this  vivid  perception  as  the  long,  weary  years  pass 
over  his  head?  Will  he  not  at  last  become  tired 
of    his    message,    his    congregation,    and    himself? 


I/O        EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN    THE    MINISTRY 

The  secret  of  ever  renewed  attention  is  expounded 
by  Professor  James  in  his  "Talks  to  Teachers": 
"  The  subject  must  be  made  to  show  new  aspects  of 
itself ;  to  prompt  new  questions ;  in  a  word,  to  change. 
From  an  unchanging  subject  the  attention  inevitably 
wanders  away.  .  .  .  You  can  test  this.  .  .  .  Try 
to  attend  steadfastly  to  a  dot  on  the  paper  or  on 
the  wall."  No  man  can  do  that  for  any  length  of 
time.  "  But  if  you  ask  yourself  successive  questions 
about  the  dot,  how  big  it  is,  how  far,  of  what  shape, 
what  shade  of  color,  etc. ;  in  other  words,  if  you  turn 
it  over,  if  you  think  of  it  in  various  ways,  along  with 
various  kinds  of  associates,  you  can  keep  your  mind 
on  it  for  a  comparatively  long  time.  That  is  what 
the  genius  does  in  whose  hands  a  given  topic  co- 
ruscates and  grows.  That  is  what  the  teacher  must 
do  for  every  topic,  if  he  wishes  to  avoid  too  frequent 
appeals  to  voluntary  attention  of  the  coerced  sort."  ^ 
This  explains  our  present  revolt  against  the  exag- 
gerated sermon  analysis  of  former  days.  The  very 
mention  of  "fourthly"  and  "fifthly"  to-day  pro- 
vokes a  smile  or  a  protest.  We  do  not  care  for 
sermons  built  up  as  a  carpenter  builds  a  row  of 
houses,  all  of  the  same  reiterated  design.  We 
demand  novelty  —  novelty  not  by  the  addition  of 
ornaments  and  anecdotes,  but  rather  by  new  as- 
pects of  the  subject  which  shall  relate  it  to  new  parts 
of  our  own  experience.  We  feel  a  repugnance  to 
*  Tdlks  to  Teachers,  p.  103. 


THE  SERVICE  OP  PSYCHOLOGY       I /I 

fourthly  and  fifthly,  not  (let  us  hope)  because  we 
dislike  coherent  thinking,  but  because  the  mere 
announcement  of  laborious  subdivisions  is  a  dec- 
laration that  the  preacher  is  primarily  interested, 
not  in  the  lives  before  him,  but  in  the  logical  analysis 
of  doctrine.  He  seems  to  us  to  regard  his  congre- 
gation as  spectators  of  a  process  of  reasoning  lead- 
ing to  a  triumphant  Q.E.D.,  instead  of  regarding  the 
truth  as  a  means  of  helping  the  congregation.  He 
thinks  more  of  logical  victory  than  of  spiritual  in- 
spiration. 

For  this  reason,  the  former  doctrinal  sermon,  in 
which  logical  coherence  and  demonstration  were  in 
the  forefront,  has  now  given  way  to  a  more  human 
and  direct  approach  in  which  the  speaker  closely 
grapples  with  his  congregation,  according  to  O'Con- 
nell's  saying,  "A  great  speech  is  a  great  thing; 
but  after  all  the  verdict  is  the  thing."  And  this  is 
a  return  to  the  earliest  methods  of  the  Christian 
church.  The  logical  method  was  never  employed 
by  the  Semitic  mind.  We  are  often  puzzled  because 
the  sayings  of  our  Lord  are  gnomic,  epigrammatic, 
pictorial,  startling  us  like  a  flashlight  in  a  dark 
room,  when  our  Western  intellect  expects  proposi- 
tions, major  and  minor  premise,  and  irrefutable 
conclusion.  We  are  troubled  and  baffled  because 
Christ  seems  interested  in  people  rather  than  dis- 
courses, and  persists  in  lighting  up  the  recesses  of 
human  hearts  instead  of  helping  us  in  the  formation 


172        EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

of  our  creeds  and  theologies.  But  he  was  wiser 
than  we  are.  We  cannot,  indeed,  surrender  our 
attempt  to  coordinate  truth  and  make  it  intelligible 
in  forms  of  thought.  While  the  world  stands  we 
shall  need  to  rationalize  our  faith  and  put  it  in 
philosophic  form,  but  not  in  the  pulpit.  There  we 
are  to  put  it  in  forms  of  life,  appealing  to  human 
hunger,  aspiration,  conviction,  hope,  fear,  affection, 
and  make  the  message  come  home  to  the  entire  man. 
5.  In  the  same  line  is  the  emphasis  of  psychology 
on  the  emotions  and  the  will  as  the  centre  of  per- 
sonality. For  centuries  Christian  teachers  have 
apologized  for  the  emotional  element  in  religion. 
It  has  been  felt  a  damaging  admission  that  conduct 
is  determined  by  feeling,  and  the  ideal  man  has  been 
pictured  as  one  who,  after  being  duly  instructed, 
yields  intellectual  assent  to  statements  of  truth,  and 
confesses  his  adhesion  to  the  venerable  creed  and 
the  historic  organization.  Is  not  this  man  who 
becomes  a  Christian  by  intellectual  assent  as  unreal 
a  personage  as  the  "  economic  man"  of  the  old  politi- 
cal economy  ?  The  truth  is  that  our  feelings  are  the 
mainspring  of  all  we  have  and  are.  The  feelings 
are  not  signs  of  weakness,  they  are  the  motive  power 
in  all  our  living.  If  they  are  wrongly  directed,  we 
become  slaves  of  passion  or  caprice.  If  they  are 
strong  and  steadfast,  then  the  intellectual  and  social 
life  becomes  potent  and  progressive.  Every  feeling 
tends  to  vent  itself  in  action,  and  when  strong  enough 


THE   SERVICE   OF   PSYCHOLOGY  1/3 

issues  in  deeds  without  any  conscious  choice.  That 
habitual  currents  of  feeling  wear  channels  in  the 
very  substance  of  the  brain,  that  through  those 
channels  feeling  discharges  itself  with  ever  increas- 
ing swiftness  and  ease,  that  the  slightest  desire  tends 
to  eventuate  in  deeds,  and  that  no  human  being 
can  permanently  desire  one  thing  and  act  another 
—  these  are  the  psychological  facts  that  reenforce 
the  ancient  insight ;  "  As  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart 
so  is  he."  The  insistence  of  all  moralists  and 
preachers  throughout  the  ages  on  judging  men  by 
aspiration  rather  than  by  performance,  the  steady 
declaration  of  the  church  that  virtue  is  interior, 
the  emphasis  of  Christianity  on  "whosoever  look- 
eth"  and  "whosoever  hateth," — all  this  finds  ex- 
traordinary corroboration  in  psychology.  It  is  a 
timorous  and  half-hearted  religion  which  apologizes 
for  appeal  to  the  emotions.  Only  let  us  remember 
that  the  appeal  must  be,  not  to  the  transient  moods 
that  ripple  the  surface  of  the  soul,  but  to  the  great 
primary  hungers  and  hopes  and  fears  and  loves 
which  sweep  steadily  onward  like  the  great  trade- 
winds  driving  countless  ships  across  the  sea.  With- 
out these  driving  powers  men  would  be  less  than 
human.  Instead  of  apologizing  because  we  possess 
them,  we  should  glory  in  their  possession.  The 
hungers  of  the  soul  are  the  proof  of  its  greatness. 
The  swine  in  the  far  country  could  not  say, "  I  perish 
with  hunger."     Only  the  lost  son  could  feel  the 


174       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

attraction  of  the  Father's  house.  Had  we  composed 
the  parable,  we  might  have  had  the  son  brought  home 
by  the  exhortation  of  a  travelling  preacher,  by  his 
straying  into  some  synagogue,  by  some  irrefutable 
demonstration  of  the  existence  of  the  Father.  But 
to  picture  the  boy  as  starting  homeward  merely 
because  he  was  hungry  —  how  disappointing  to  the 
rationalistic  view  of  man,  how  eternally  true  to  the 
divine  discontents  and  unvoiced  longings  within 
us  all! 

Intellectual  assent  without  emotional  consent 
deserves  neither  praise  nor  blame.  It  could  be 
given  by  a  logical  mechanism,  destitute  of  character. 
Character  begins  when  the  tides  of  feeling  begin  to 
flow,  and  the  conscious  reason  either  inhibits  those 
tides,  as  men  dam  up  a  river,  or  yields  to  their  power, 
as  men  plunge  their  water  wheels  in  the  river  and 
convert  its  lawless  flood  into  directed  power.  The 
aim  of  preaching  is  to  appeal  to  the  primary  instincts 
and  interests  of  the  soul,  to  address  the  entire  nature 
of  man  with  all  its  passions,  appetites,  inarticulate 
hungers,  blind  reactions,  and  subconscious  strivings, 
as  well  as  its  perception  of  logical  validity.  Men 
are  indeed  to  be  uplifted  and  moulded  through  the 
presentation  of  the  truth;  but  this  truth  is  ad- 
dressed not  merely  to  the  reasoning  power,  but  to 
the  entire  personality.  The  truth  presses  into  the 
soul  as  the  tide  sweeps  along  the  shore,  flooding  every 
bay  and  cavern  and  creek,  and  by  a  thousand  inlets 


THE   SERVICE  OF   PSYCHOLOGY  1 75 

penetrating  to  the  interior.  Through  our  instincts 
as  well  as  our  arguments  the  truth  comes  home. 
The  instincts  of  men  were  acquired  long  before 
their  reason  developed,  and  evolutionary  philosophy 
often  intimates  that  reason  is  a  late  development 
achieved  solely  as  an  aid  in  the  struggle  for  survival. 
To  ignore  the  fact  that  the  man  in  the  pew  is  pri- 
marily a  creature  of  instinct  and  feeling,  and  to 
address  him  as  if  he  were  to  be  moulded  and  up- 
lifted by  the  nineteen  valid  forms  of  syllogism,  is 
wholly  to  mistake  one's  task.  "In  the  near  future," 
says  G.  Stanley  Hall,  "education  will  focus  upon  the 
feelings,  sentiments,  emotions,  and  try  to  do  some- 
thing for  the  heart,  out  of  which  are  the  issues  of  life. 
It  is  this  side  of  our  nature  which  represents  the 
human  race,  while  the  intellect,  and  even  to  a  large 
extent  the  will,  are  acquired  by  each  individual.  .  .  . 
The  highest  education  is  that  which  focusses  the  soul 
upon  the  largest  loves  and  generates  the  strongest 
and  most  diversified  interests."  In  attaining  such 
an  insight  the  modem  educator  powerfully  re- 
enforces  the  preacher,  whose  task  is  to  declare  the 
whole  counsel  of  God  to  the  whole  content  of  the 
human  soul. 

6.  Educational  psychology  is  also  among  the 
prophets  in  its  emphasis  on  the  value  of  action  in 
the  development  of  character.  The  preacher  may 
indeed  say:  "This  is  nothing  new.  As  old  as  the 
Christianity  is  the  declaration  that  *if  any  man  will 


176       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

do  ...  he  shall  know.'"  But  to  show  why  this 
is  true,  to  discover  the  working  of  the  principle 
in  many  realms,  to  expound  the  significance  of  self- 
activity  in  all  intellectual  and  moral  development, 
this  is  the  task  of  psychology  and  constitutes  one 
of  its  most  valuable  gifts  to  religion.  The  division 
of  men  into  sensory  and  motor  types  has  been  un- 
consciously made  by  every  man  who  has  under- 
stood his  fellows.  The  most  untrained  preacher  on 
the  frontier  is  aware  that  some  men  are  by  nature 
dominantly  receptive,  and  others  are  of  the  eager, 
executive,  and  achieving  type.  But  that  all  men  are 
to  be  trained  not  by  pouring  truth  into  them,  but 
by  inducing  them  to  act  out  the  truth  they  know, 
is  now  an  axiom  of  modern  education.  "Learn- 
ing by  doing"  is  the  rough  statement  of  a  profound 
principle  which,  long  implicit  in  the  great  teachers, 
preachers  and  organizers  of  men,  is  now  at  last 
explicit  in  education.  The  schools  have  adopted 
manual  training,  not  in  order  to  enable  children  to 
produce  things  of  commercial  value,  —  the  trade 
school  does  that,  —  but  in  order  to  train  the  hand 
as  well  as  the  eye,  because  inability  to  use  the  hands 
constructively  means  inability  to  use  large  sections 
of  the  brain.  Intellectual  and  moral  life  is  not 
sheer  reception  of  wisdom  from  without,  it  is  not 
the  attitude  of  a  pail  under  a  pump ;  it  is  self-activ- 
ity, the  forth-putting  of  mental  and  moral  energy  in 
deeds.     As  Byron  said, 


THE   SERVICE   OF   PSYCHOLOGY  1 7/ 

"'tis  to  create, 
And  by  creation  live  a  being  more  intense." 

Hence  character-building  is  to  be  achieved,  not 
chiefly  by  learning  what  is  true,  but  by  doing  what 
is  right.  The  laboratory  now  everywhere  supple- 
ments the  library,  the  workshop  stands  beside  the 
lecture  room.  In  a  former  generation  our  children 
studied  astronomy  without  a  telescope,  geology  from 
a  blackboard,  botany  without  entering  the  green 
fields,  and  sometimes  could  spell  the  names  of  all 
the  trees  without  recognizing  any  tree  in  the  forest 
when  they  saw  it.  Now  nature-study  takes  them 
beyond  the  book-plates  and  descriptions  to  the 
actual  flora  and  fauna.  In  the  making  of  gardens 
and  miniature  buildings  they  give  free  play  to  the 
constructive  impulse  which  lies  deep  in  human 
nature.  The  school  is  no  longer  merely  a  place  in 
which  to  listen;  it  is  a  place  in  which  to  act,  to 
build  and  plant,  to  create  and  achieve,  and  the 
appeal  to  the  motor  side  of  human  nature  has  trans- 
formed education. 

Has  this  new  knowledge  been  adequately  recog- 
nized in  the  programme  of  the  church?  Or  do 
we  still  think  that  religion  is  largely  synonymous 
with  passive  attention,  and  that  the  test  of  youthful 
piety  is  sitting  still  in  church  service?  The  church 
will  bind  active  young  people  to  itself  not  by  what 
it  does  for  them,  but  by  what  it  gives  them  to  do. 
Its  greatest  gift  may  be  a  sphere  of  action,  a  worthy 


178       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

and  enduring  task.  ''What  wilt  thou  have  me  to 
do?"  is  the  question  that  lies  at  the  beginning  of 
every  great  career.  The  most  virile  and  vital  man- 
hood is  precisely  that  which  cannot  endure  merely 
to  sit  still  and  listen,  though  the  listening  be  on  a 
sacred  day  and  in  a  sacred  place.  "Divine  service" 
is  not  simply  praying  and  speaking  on  Sunday 
morning  at  eleven  o'clock.  The  true  divine  service 
begins  when  the  worship  is  ended,  and  the  church 
doors  swing  outward  into  the  eager  and  struggling 
life  of  the  world.  The  true  religious  educator  is 
not  he  who  continues  to  crowd  truth  year  after  year 
into  docile  minds,  but  he  who  summons  men  to 
act  on  what  they  know  and  himself  leads  the  way. 
The  minister  who  has  grasped  this  principle  will 
value  introspection  only  as  a  means  to  wise  and 
deliberate  action.  Self-examination  is  merely  a 
path  to  self-activity.  We  should  look  at  sin  just 
long  enough  to  see  what  it  is  and  forsake  it.  To 
examine  and  analyze  it,  as  did  the  mediaeval  casuists, 
is  to  feel  anew  its  fascination.  To  dissect  our  own 
feelings  is  not  a  means  of  grace.  The  habit  of 
keeping  a  diary  is  well,  provided  the  diary  is  filled 
with  something  more  than  our  own  pulse-beats. 
No  man  grows  by  watching  his  own  shadow.  But 
when  a  man  looks  backward  only  in  order  that  he 
may  go  forward,  and  gazes  within  only  that  he  may 
more  effectively  "lend  a  hand,"  then  he  reaches  the 
true  balance  of  contemplation  and  action.     Our  gen- 


THE   SERVICE   OF   PSYCHOLOGY  1 79 

eradon  is  indeed  deficient  in  quiet  thoughtfulness, 
in  that  meditation  out  of  which  all  high  and  clear 
vision  must  come.  But  in  its  approach  to  religion 
through  ethics,  in  its  attempt  to  reach  truth  through 
action,  it  is  in  harmony  with  the  soundest  psycho- 
logical theory. 

7.  One  of  the  greatest  services  that  psychology 
has  rendered  to  our  time  is  its  far-reaching  study 
of  the  meaning  of  adolescence.  To  John  Fiske 
we  owe  the  first  deep  insight  into  this  field,  since  he 
first  showed  us  how  the  prolongation  of  human 
infancy  has  made  possible  the  human  home,  with 
all  its  wealth  of  affection  and  power  of  education. 
Since  that  time  a  multitude  of  students  have  been 
at  work  in  the  study  of  childhood  and  youth,  imtil 
our  entire  attitude  toward  adolescence  has  been 
transformed.  Facts  wholly  new  to  the  world  have 
been  brought  to  light,  and  fascinating  vistas  of 
opportunity  and  responsibility  have  opened  before 
every  teacher. 

If  it  be  true  that  every  human  being  passes  through 
certain  physiological  changes  at  adolescence  which 
profoundly  change  his  whole  mental  and  affectional 
life,  then  a  conception  of  religious  experience  which 
ignores  these  changes  is  clearly  inadequate.  But  how 
often  have  we  tried  to  force  little  children  through 
the  experience  of  the  thief  on  the  cross  or  the  apostle 
to  the  Gentiles!  We  have  frequently  treated  the 
child  as  simply  an  ungrown  man  or  woman.    We 


l80       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

have  for  the  sake  of  the  children  taken  treatises 
intended  for  adults  and  put  them  into  words  of  one 
syllable.  We  have  presented  abstract  ideas  to 
children  at  the  age  when  concrete  objects  were 
needed.  If  then  they  failed  to  respond,  the  failure 
was  frequently  laid  to  inner  depravity,  when  it 
should  have  been  laid  to  our  own  blindness  and 
ignorance. 

The  three  epochs  of  childhood  may  be  roughly 
outlined  as  the  period  from  six  to  eight  years,  the 
period  from  eight  to  twelve,  and  the  period  from 
twelve  to  sixteen  years  of  age.  In  the  first  period 
there  is  a  constant  necessity  for  the  appeal  to  au- 
thority. In  those  years  childhood  is  not  to  reason 
why,  but  is  to  attain  freedom  through  the  funda- 
mental virtue  of  obedience.  Right  and  wrong  are 
then  rules  of  action  enforced  by  superior  power. 
In  the  second  period  comes  the  transition.  Verbal 
memory  is  strong  and  should  be  filled  with  noble 
passages  from  great  writers  of  all  time.  Imagina- 
tion is  glowing  and  should  have  constant  nourish- 
ment. Right  and  wrong  are  passing  from  mere 
rules  into  principles  of  action.  Religion  is  becoming 
not  only  a  story  of  what  was  once,  but  the  possibility 
of  a  divine  life  now  and  here.  In  the  third  period 
comes  that  marvellous  efflorescence,  physical,  mental, 
and  spiritual,  which  opens  up  a  new  and  dazzling 
world  of  social  and  moral  possibility.  Strange 
impulses   surge   through   the   soul;     the   sound   of 


THE   SERVICE   OP   PSYCHOLOGY  l8l 

distant  voices  is  heard  in  all  the  inner  chambers 
of  being;  great  ideals  float  before  us  and  are  with- 
drawn. The  youth  sees  **the  vision  of  the  world 
and  the  glory  that  will  be."  He  forms  passionate 
loyalties  to  new  causes,  ideas,  persons;  followed  by 
reaction  into  melancholy  or  despair.  He  chooses 
one  career  after  another  as  his  own,  and  passes 
through  various  creeds,  social,  political,  and  religious. 
He  sees  himself  as  leader  in  many  a  cause,  hero  in 
many  a  batde,  and  anon  is  plunged  into  pessimism 
regarding  himself  and  the  world. 

It  is  needless  to  recall  the  statistics  of  our  church 
membership,  which  show  that  this  period  in  life  is 
the  supreme  religious  opportunity  to  the  individual 
and  the  church.  Of  the  years  from  twelve  to 
eighteen  it  is  peculiarly  true  that  "now  is  the  ac- 
cepted time."  If  the  budding  soul,  all  astir  and 
athrob  with  the  climbing  powers  of  the  human 
springtime, — if  now  it  fails  to  make  any  supreme 
moral  choice,  fails  to  yield  itself  in  any  irrevocable 
spiritual  allegiance,  the  great  opportunity  passes 
beyond  recall.  All  later  reform  is  at  far  greater 
moral  cost  and  difficulty.  The  Christian  pastor 
should  know  and  feel  that  at  adolescence  the  powers 
of  human  nature  are  working  with  him.  His  young 
people  are  by  nature  blossoming  into  new  demands, 
aspirations,  and  longings.  The  fountains  of  the 
great  deep  are  broken  up.  The  inner  life  is  crying 
out  for  something  more  than  food  and  drink.    The 


1 82       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

soul  is  hungry  for  invisible  bread.  It  clutches 
eagerly  at  the  offer  of  sympathy,  whether  it  come 
from  above  or  below.  It  craves  companionship, 
assurance,  gladness,  victory.  To  this  period  re- 
ligion comes  with  its  supreme  message  from  one 
who  knew  what  was  in  man.  The  Messiah  who 
himself  at  adolescence  terrified  Mary  and  Joseph 
by  his  sudden  self-assertion,  and  cried  with  a  new 
accent  in  his  voice,  "I  must  be  about  my  Father's 
business,"  is  the  same  living  Lord  who  forever 
claims  the  allegiance  of  the  newly  awakened  soul, 
offering  to  each  a  yoke  that  is  easy  and  a  burden 
that  is  light. 

To  recognize  this  marvellous  awakening  at  the 
time  of  adolescence  and  adapt  Christian  effort  to  it, 
is  not  to  ignore  the  divine  presence  and  action. 
We  do  not  banish  God  when  we  discover  his  method. 
Is  he  not  present  in  physiological  changes  within 
us,  as  truly  as  in  geological  changes  without  us? 
Can  we  believe  that  he  ''clothes  the  grass  of  the 
field"  and  yet  is  not  acting  in  the  great  investiture 
of  the  human  spirit  with  social  powers  and  hungers  ? 
The  regular  recurrence  of  adolescent  transforma- 
tion, forcing  each  new  life  out  of  isolation  into 
fellowship,  out  of  passive  routine  into  insurgent 
aspiration,  may  be  the  clearest  evidence  of  God's 
immanence  in  body  and  soul. 

8.  But  perhaps  the  chief  value  of  the  study  of 
human  growth  and  development  is  in  the  reenforce- 


THB  SERVICE  OF  PSYCHOLOGY       1 83 

ment  which  comes  to  the  central  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity when  they  are  interpreted  in  terms  of  life. 
Many  theological  difficulties  are  to  be  solved,  not 
by  the  pathway  of  metaphysics,  but  by  a  deeper 
understanding  of  the  spiritual  life  of  man.  Perhaps 
the  chief  advance  which  preachers  like  Robertson 
of  Brighton  and  Phillips  Brooks  made  on  their 
predecessors  lies  here.  We  cannot  claim  that  these 
modem  prophets  excel  their  great  forbears  in  philo- 
sophic grasp,  in  logical  acumen.  But  they  cleariy 
do  excel  in  their  psychological  power,  in  their 
capacity  for  intuition  into  the  hopes  and  fears  and 
remorses  and  aspirations  of  humanity.  They  lay 
bare  our  hearts;  they  flash  a  torch  in  the  secret 
chambers  of  imagery;  they  expose  our  deepest 
motives  to  our  startled  gaze,  and  interpret  our 
confused  struggle  with  a  seer's  insight.  Many  of 
their  attitudes  and  methods  are  explained  and  en- 
forced by  every  new  treatise  on  psychology.  The 
pulpit  and  the  laboratory  are  at  one  in  teaching  us 
to  interpret  doctrine  in  terms  of  life.  Through 
such  interpretation  a  thousand  doctrinal  difficulties 
dwindle  or  vanish. 

For  example,  the  emphasis  which  the  church  has 
frequently  placed  on  periods  of  religious  awaken- 
ing has  been  peculiarly  objectionable  to  men  of 
philosophic  temper,  whose  own  development  has 
been  at  an  even  pace  and  without  any  marked  event. 
Is,  then,  the  revival  of  religion,  sweeping  through  a 


184       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

community,  to  be  craved  as  a  divine  and  gracious 
gift,  or  to  be  feared  as  an  abnormal  stimulation? 
To  the  a  priori  philosopher  the  method  of  even 
and  steady  growth  may  appear  superior.  To  the 
student  of  the  ''psychology  of  the  crowd,"  these 
great  tides  of  emotion  and  conviction,  felt  alike  in 
the  school  and  the  church  and  the  nation,  felt  in 
the  political,  the  social  and  the  religious  realm, 
are  entirely  normal,  and  constitute  a  rational  and 
human  method  of  advance.  The  path  of  progress 
is  seen  to  be  not  a  straight  line;  the  line  is  curved 
and  knotted;  it  runs  through  crises  and  judgment 
days;  and  to  object  to  life's  sudden  tensions  is  to 
quarrel  with  life  itself. 

So  the  insistence  of  the  Bible  on  the  resurrection 
of  the  body  has  been  a  stumbling-block  to  many. 
The  Platonic  idea  of  incorporeal  immortality  has 
seemed  to  many  a  more  spiritual  conception  than 
that  of  the  great  paean  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of 
the  letter  to  the  Corinthians:  "The  trumpet 
shall  sound  .  .  .  and  we  shall  be  changed."  That 
splendid  hymn  of  victory  has  to  philosophic  re- 
finement seemed  needlessly  explicit  in  material 
and  bodily  detail.  Is  it  not  nobler  to  say  with 
Robert  Browning :  "What  becomes  of  the  old  clothes 
of  me,  I  have  no  manner  of  care"?  But  one  who 
has  been  trained  to  conceive  body  and  soul  as 
constituting  a  single  unitary  personality  cannot 
avoid  an  instinctive  sympathy  with  the  Pauline  idea 


THE  SERVICE  OF  PSYCHOLOGY        1 85 

of  the  life  beyond.  At  farthest  possible  remove  from 
the  Greek  conception  of  the  future  world  as  a  limbo 
of  pale  and  ghostly  shades  is  the  apostle's  glowing 
thought  of  the  complete  human  personality,  ennobled, 
purified,  and  translated  into  the  eternal  Kingdom 
of  God.  Innumerable  difficulties  may  surround 
any  attempt  to  conceive  the  mode  of  the  future 
life;  the  grotesque  particulars  outlined  by  some 
expositors  may  repel  the  reverent  mind.  But 
the  conception  of  a  life,  in  which,  in  some  sense, 
the  whole  man  attains  continuing  expression,  of 
a  sphere  in  which  the  complete  personality  finds 
a  congenial  home,  is  in  harmony  with  the  funda- 
mental thought  of  those  who  have  studied  man  most 
deeply  to-day. 

So  also  the  miraculous  element  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment presents  far  less  difficulty  to  the  psychologist 
than  to  the  metaphysician,  or  even  to  the  theologian. 
While  the  latter  may  busy  themselves  in  defining 
the  relation  of  the  natural  to  the  supernatural,  or 
in  discussing  the  value  of  historical  testimony,  the 
psychologist  begins  his  examination  with  the  record 
of  the  miracles  of  healing.  Accustomed  as  he  is  to 
find  every  great  personality  in  history  radiating 
influences  which  are  not  to  be  explained  by 
ordinary  formulas,  he  would  be  astonished  if  the 
work  of  Jesus  failed  to  include  **  signs  and  wonders." 
Accustomed  to  give  credence  to  many  narratives  of 
mental  and  spiritual  therapeutics,  familiar  with  the 


1 86       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

cures  wrought  by  faith  in  all  ages,  the  calm  judg- 
ment, "Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee,  go  in  peace," 
seems  to  him  only  the  recognition  of  the  supremacy 
of  spiritual  forces  over  impotence  and  pain  and 
disease.  If  any  one  of  us  should  enter  the  laboratory 
of  Marconi  or  Madame  Curie,  we  should  expect 
some  startling  phenomena.  We  should  be  disap- 
pointed to  find  such  persons  showing  no  greater 
mastery  of  physical  forces  than  we  ourselves  possess. 
So  when  we  enter  the  presence  of  Jesus  as  he  lived 
in  Galilee,  we  find  his  character  to  be  such  a  miracle 
that  other  recorded  marvels  seem  but  natural  se- 
quences. Even  in  the  greatest  deeds,  what  he  did 
was  less  than  what  he  was.  However  the  "nature 
miracles"  may  baffle  us,  the  record  of  healing  seems 
so  simple  and  sincere  and  appropriate  as  to  win 
immediate  assent.  A  Messiah  who  did  nothing 
for  the  physical  life  of  men,  who  merely  taught 
stoical  insensibility  to  pain,  might  be  another 
Aurelius  or  Epictetus;  he  would  not  be  one  who 
came  "to  preach  deliverance  to  the  captives  and  to 
set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised." 

Thus  we  might  run  through  the  central  truths 
of  Christianity  and  find  that  each  one  of  them  loses 
some  point  of  difficulty,  or  offers  some  new  avenue 
of  approach,  when  seen  from  the  standpoint  of  human 
experience.  The  Christian,  like  the  psychologist, 
asks  not  what  is  probable,  not  what  will  fit  into  a 
system,  but  simply  what  is  true.     From  this  stand- 


THE  SERVICE  OF  PSYCHOLOGY        1 8/ 

point  much  of  our  wider  knowledge  of  moral  and 
religious  experience  is  confirming  and  explaining 
both  the  facts  of  Christian  history  and  the  familiar 
statements  of  Christian  truth.  The  Bible  itself  is 
a  book  of  experience  rather  than  philosophy.  With 
difficulty  we  make  it  fit  our  credal  systems ;  but  easily 
it  fits  into  and  enriches  our  life.  It  is  not  primarily 
a  book  of  propositions  to  be  believed  or  commands 
to  be  obeyed.  It  is  the  witness  of  the  men  who,  of  all 
in  history,  have  perceived  the  Infinite  most  vividly 
and  experienced  his  presence  most  profoundly. 

If  now  any  one  should  be  induced  by  these  words 
to  take  up  again  the  study  of  psychology,  he  must 
expect  no  marvels  to  be  wrought  by  it.  He  must 
constantly  beware  of  extremists  here  as  elsewhere. 
He  must  adopt  nothing  because  it  is  new.  He 
must  remember  that  half  truths  are  easily  discerned 
—  the  full  truth  comes  only  to  the  patient  student. 
But  in  the  characteristic  doctrines  of  psychology  no 
sincere  religious  teacher  can  fail  to  find  help.  Pro- 
fessor James's  chapter  on  Habit  has  been  preached 
in  a  thousand  pulpits.  His  chapter  on  Attention 
has  moulded  the  methods  of  many  Biblical  teachers. 
The  modem  doctrine  of  interest  is  indispensable  to 
every  Sunday-school.  Three  months'  study  of  psy- 
chology will  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  the  relation  of 
thought  and  feeling  in  religion ;  on  the  reason  why  a 
suggestion  is  better  than  an  exhaustive  discussion; 
on  the  way  to  introduce  new  ideas  into  a  circle  of 


1 88        EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

old  ones;  on  the  power  of  a  single  inserted  idea  to 
effect  permanent  changes  in  character.  Even  the 
briefest  study  may  give  one  the  psychological  point 
of  view.  When  we  have  attained  that,  all  religious 
phenomena  become  of  intense  interest.  Even  our 
enemies  we  do  not  fear  or  hate,  when  absorbed  in 
trying  to  explain  them.  The  opposition  which  ter- 
rifies the  inexperienced  worker  becomes  to  us  the 
expected  reaction  of  evil.  The  indifference  which 
discourages  many  is  then  to  us  simply  a  reason  for 
changing  our  method.  The  falling  away  of  some 
co-workers  is  but  a  repetition  of  the  universal  human 
experience,  while  the  swift  increase  of  the  early 
Christian  church  is  but  an  intimation  of  the  spiritual 
powers  that  play  about  us  to-day. 

Not  the  least  of  the  benefits  of  the  psychological 
view-point  is  that  it  thus  releases  us  from  personal 
resentments  and  exasperations,  and  enables  us  to  see 
our  local  task  as  part  of  the  education  of  humanity. 
The  religious  leader  is  above  all  other  men  in  danger 
of  acquiring  merely  personal  standards  of  judgment. 
The  chemist,  or  physicist,  or  biologist  is  dealing  daily 
with  a  mass  of  objective  fact,  where  personal  likes 
and  dislikes  must  be  ignored,  where  subjective 
moods  must  not  be  allowed  to  affect  conclusion  or 
action.  But  the  man  who,  like  the  poet,  or  preacher, 
or  teacher,  or  statesman,  lives  mainly  in  the  world 
of  personality,  and  must  contend  with  human 
fickleness,    prejudice,   and    misconstruction,    is    in 


THE   SERVICE   OF   PSYCHOLOGY  1 89 

danger  of  estimating  all  men  and  movements  solely 
according  to  their  relation  to  himself.  The  man 
that  agrees  with  him  must  be  right;  the  man  who 
ignores  his  appeal  must  be  depraved;  those  who 
suggest  another  method  must  be  malicious;  those 
who  prefer  to  follow  another  leader  must  be  schis- 
matics and  troublers  in  Israel.  But  whoever  as- 
sumes that  attitude  finds  life  full  of  thorns  and 
stings.  He  becomes  tender  and  touchy,  and  his 
work  capricious  and  fitful.  He  is  the  sport  of  the 
varying  winds  of  popular  favor.  A  rainy  Sunday 
or  a  slender  congregation  depresses  such  a  preacher 
utterly;  a  large  and  responsive  assembly  fills  him 
with  short-lived  enthusiasm.  The  apathy  of  good 
men  nettles  him;  the  opposition  of  evil  men  calls 
out  his  anathemas;  and  the  whole  world  seems 
roseate  with  dawn,  or  black  with  woe,  according  as  it 
does  or  does  not  indorse  his  petty  personal  policy. 
But  the  man  who  is  able  to  take  the  objective 
standpoint  of  psychology  can  see  things  in  their 
larger  and  more  permanent  relations.  He  has 
acquired  a  practical  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
—  the  material  in  which  he  has  to  work,  —  just 
as  the  physician  has  mastered  his  anatomy  and 
physiology.  He  understands  that  good  men  must 
frequently  dififer,  and  that  bad  men  may  be  explained. 
He  knows  that  there  are  many  gates  to  the  City  of 
Man-soul,  and  if  driven  back  at  one  entrance  he 
draws  off  and  prepares  to  march  in  at  another. 


190       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

Like  Elijah  under  the  juniper  tree,  he  learns  that  the 
conclusion  hastily  drawn  from  his  own  experience  is 
refuted  by  seven  thousand  instances  outside  his  own 
small  circle.  He  conquers  his  own  temperament, 
and  views  philosophically  the  sudden  depressions 
and  elations  around  him.  If  men  are  obtuse  or 
unresponsive,  he  realizes  that  there  are  some  ways 
in  which  we  can  play  on  an  instrument,  and  some 
ways  in  which  we  cannot ;  and  that  instead  of  blam- 
ing the  instrument  we  had  better  learn  the  stops. 

"He  knew  what  was  in  man."  In  that  brief 
recognition  of  Christ's  insight  is  recorded  the  ex- 
planation of  that  calmness  amid  three  years  of 
tumult,  of  that  exquisite  patience  with  dull  disciples 
and  frowning  Pharisees,  of  the  parabolic  form  of 
instruction,  and  of  the  unforgettable  sayings  that 
reveal  all  men  to  themselves. 


THE   SERVICE  OF   PSYCHOLOGY  IQI 

Anything  like  a  bibliography  of  recent  works  on  the  psychol- 
ogy of  religious  education  would  be  too  long  for  insertion  here. 
An  extraordinary  wealth  of  literature  has  been  created  within 
a  few  years  —  literature  with  which  no  religious  leader  or  teacher 
can  afford  to  remain  unacquainted.  Many  of  these  books  presup- 
pose acquaintance  with  the  main  facts  of  psychology,  such  as  are 
presented  in  some  standard  text-book.  Professor  William  James's 
"Psychology"  will  prepare  any  student  for  the  perusal  of  other 
works  dealing  with  the  applications  of  the  science.  A  few  books 
are  named  below  which  apply  the  results  of  the  study  of  psy- 
chology to  the  problems  of  moral  and  religious  education  — 
books  which  should  be  in  every  library  connected  with  a  church 
or  Sunday-school.  In  some  places  these  volumes  have  been 
gathered  in  a  travelling  library,  and  sent  from  church  to  church 
throughout  the  region. 

"The  Spiritual  Life,"  "Education  in  Religion  and  Morals," 
"The  Religion  of  a  Mature  Mind,"  by  George  A.  CoE. 

"Personal  and  Ideal  Elements  in  Education,"  "Rational  Aims 
in  Living,"  by  Henry  Chxtrchill  King. 

"The  Moral  Instruction  of  Children,"  by  Felix  Adler. 

"The  Psychology  of  Religion,"  by  Edwin  D.  Starbuck. 

"  Talks  to  Teachers,"  "The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience," 
by  William  James. 

"The  Making  of  Character,"  by  John  MacCunn. 

"Principles  and  Ideals  for  the  Sunday-School,"  by  BtTRTOM 
and  Matthews. 

The  volumes  containing  the  Annual  Proceedings  of  the  Relig- 
ious Education  Association. 

"The  Journal  of  Religious  Education,"  published  by  the 
Religious  Exlucation  Association. 

"The  Journal  of  Religious  Psychology  and  Education,"  pub- 
lished by  Clark  University. 

More  general  in  outlook,  but  hardly  less  pertinent  to  the 
director  of  religious  education,  are  the  following: 

"The  Educative  Process,"  by  William  Chandler  Bagley. 

"Youth:  its  Education,  Regimen,  and  Hygiene,"  by  G.  Stan- 
ley Hall. 

"  Genetic  Psychology  for  Teachers,"  by  Charles  Hubbard 

JUDD. 

"Interest  and  Education,"  by  Charles  DeGarmo. 


VI 

THE  DIRECTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

"Somewhere  in  a  nook  forlorn 
Yesterday  a  babe  was  bom. 

*  *  9|e  )tc  * 

Day  shall  nerve  his  arm  with  might, 
Slumber  soothe  him  all  the  night, 
Summer's  peace  and  winter's  storm 
Help  him  all  his  will  perform. 
*Tis  enough  of  joy  for  thee 
Such  high  service  to  foresee." 

—  E.  R.  Snx. 


LECTURE   VI 

THE   DIRECTION   OF   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION 

Every  civilized  community  is  to-day  throbbing 
with  educational  activity.  The  impulse  to  gain  new 
knowledge  and  apply  that  knowledge  to  life  is 
clearly  the  dominant  impulse  of  our  time.  The 
whole  world  is  going  to  school.  Instruction  has 
gotten  far  outside  the  schoolhouse  and  the  college. 
Public  libraries  have  sprung  up  in  every  village. 
University  extension  has  spread  out  its  tendrils 
until  a  single  university  now  enrolls  three  thousand 
students  in  extension  courses.  Public  lectures  are 
usually  no  longer  of  the  old  lyceum  order,  —  hetero- 
geneous and  aimless,  —  but  are  definite  courses  of 
lectures  by  experts  in  some  one  field  of  knowledge. 
Correspondence  schools,  with  work  of  varying  value, 
have  multiplied,  until  a  single  school  now  enrolls 
350,000  pupils  in  all  civilized  lands,  most  of  the 
pupils  being  employed  during  the  day  and  pursuing 
their  studies  at  night.  A  new  reading  public  has 
been  developed  by  popular  journalism  and  the  low- 
priced  magazine.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  people 
who,  when  living  in  the  old  world,  were  accustomed 
to  read  little  or  nothing,  arc  now  eagerly  scanning 

195 


196       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

the  papers  and  frequenting  libraries.  Hundreds  of 
thousands  of  parents  who  can  give  their  children  no 
prestige,  or  position,  or  wealth,  are  making  heroic 
sacrifice  to  give  those  children  the  best  possible 
mental  training.  Business  men,  who  a  generation 
ago  scoflFed  at  the  inefiiciency  of  the  college  graduate, 
are  now  writing  every  spring  to  college  presidents 
and  begging  for  a  list  of  the  most  promising  men  in 
the  senior  class.  The  finest  buildings  in  the  mod- 
em city  are  frequently  its  high  schools.  The  great 
western  states  are  taxing  every  dollar  of  every  citizen 
for  the  development  of  the  state  universities,  which 
are  in  turn  transforming  the  agriculture,  the  industry, 
the  social  and  political  life  of  the  people.  Never 
in  history  has  there  been  seen  such  eagerness  for 
education  as  is  now  universal  in  America. 

Yet  while  this  great  educational  enthusiasm  has 
been  leavening  our  national  life,  our  schools  have 
undergone  a  quiet  revolution.  The  American  state 
has  consented  to  drop  out  of  education  all  attempt 
at  religious  instruction  —  a  change  almost  as  far- 
reaching  as  the  elimination  of  slavery  from  our 
economic  life.  This  is  the  logical  and  inevitable 
result  of  the  principle  on  which  our  government 
is  based,  but  is  a  result  unforeseen  by  the  founders 
of  the  republic  and  at  variance  with  all  their  expecta- 
tions. Any  reader  of  the  diary  of  Judge  Sewall  or 
the  journal  of  David  Brainerd  can  see  most  vividly 
how  complete  is  the  transformation  of  psychological 


THE   DIRECTION   OF    RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      I97 

climate  brought  about  by  the  change  from  the  theo- 
logical education  prescribed  by  the  state  during  two 
centuries  of  New  England  history  to  the  secular 
education  provided  by  the  state  to-day.  The  early 
American  colonies,  with  the  exception  of  Rhode 
Island,  conceived  religious  education  as  the  duty 
of  the  government.  Of  the  famous  "  New  England 
Primer"  about  three  million  copies  were  printed  in 
the  course  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  prac- 
tically every  child  in  New  England  during  that  period 
received  his  first  instruction  by  means  of  it.  But 
that  instruction  was  all  interwoven  with  Puritan 
doctrine.  The  letter  A  introduced  the  child  to  the 
story  of  Adam,  O  made  him  familiar  with  Obadiah, 
Z  was  forever  linked  with  Zaccheus.  Then  followed, 
in  that  famous  manual,  the  catechism  and  the  sum- 
mary of  Christian  duty.  For  a  century  and  a  half 
no  child  learned  to  read  in  New  England  without 
being  grounded  at  the  same  time  in  the  elements 
of  New  England  theology.  Not  till  1833  was  the 
established  church  abolished  in  the  state  of  Con- 
necticut. Not  till  that  time  did  New  England  schools 
really  surrender  the  ideal  of  religious  propaganda  as 
their  fundamental  aim. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  we  are  facing  a  problem 
comparatively  new  in  the  Western  hemisphere,  the 
gravity  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate. 
Through  the  relentless  application  of  our  funda- 
mental principle  of  soul-liberty  it  has  come  to  pass 


198        EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

that  the  American  state  will  never  again  undertake 
the  most  important  part  of  education,  the  develop- 
ment of  the  religious  nature.  Protestantism  with 
its  numerous  divisions  of  creed,  and  democracy  with 
its  demand  for  individual  freedom,  have  silently 
revolutionized  the  attitude  of  our  government  toward 
the  education  of  its  citizens,  and  constrained  it  to  a 
position  which  no  European  country,  save  France, 
is  willing  to  indorse.  In  the  United  States,  Protes- 
tant, Roman  Catholic  and  Jew  are  united  in  believing 
that  for  the  state  to  undertake  any  form  of  religious 
education  is  to  do  irreparable  injury  to  religion  itself. 
This  attitude  of  the  American  state,  almost  with- 
out precedent  in  ancient  or  modern  history,  forces 
upon  every  thoughtful  citizen  inquiries  more  seri- 
ous and  fundamental  than  any  questions  of  economic 
or  political  reform. 

Here,  then,  is  our  national  peril  —  that  the  su- 
premely important  task  of  our  generation  will  fall 
between  church  and  state,  and  be  ignored  by  both. 
The  church  may  say:  "Education  is  no  longer  in 
our  hands."  The  state  may  say:  ''On  all  religious 
matters  we  are  silent."  Thus  millions  may  grow  up 
—  are  actually  growing  up  in  America  to-day  — 
without  any  genuine  religious  training.  It  is  time 
therefore  for  church  and  school  to  cooperate,  as  army 
and  navy  cooperate,  in  defence  of  our  common 
country.  Power  of  attention,  concentration,  dis- 
crimination, power  to  reason,  to  think,  habits  of 


THE   DIRECTION    OF   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION       I99 

industry,  thrift,  promptness,  fidelity,  command  of 
the  tools  of  common  speech  and  daily  life  —  all  this 
can  be  given  by  the  school.  Ideas  of  reverence  for 
the  unseen,  of  obedience  to  conscience,  of  the  con- 
stant recognition  of  God  in  nature  and  history,  of 
the  place  of  Christ  in  Christianity,  of  the  growth 
and  value  of  the  Bible,  of  the  method  and  motive 
of  the  Christian  life,  of  the  relation  of  Christianity 
to  other  religions  —  all  these  must  come  through  .the 
home  and  the  church.  If  the  home  and  church 
shirk  this  responsibility,  our  people  will  be  in  fifty 
years  a  nation  without  a  religion,  i.e.  a  nation 
disintegrating  and  dying.  No  strong  and  enduring 
people  ever  yet  existed  without  definite  and  contin- 
uous work  in  religious  education.  If  reverence  does 
not  **grow  from  more  to  more,'*  the  nation  is  palsied 
at  its  very  heart.  Since  the  state  cannot,  and  the 
home  usually  does  not,  undertake  religious  instruc- 
tion, what  is  the  duty  of  the  church? 

Naturally  we  think  first  of  the  Sunday-school. 
No  other  institution  of  our  age  shows  such  a  chasm 
between  possibility  and  performance.  No  other  has 
such  vast  powers  latent  and  unused.  It  is  strong 
in  numbers,  strong  in  its  position  as  the  only  school 
allowed  to  meet  on  the  one  day  when  the  people  are 
at  leisure,  strong  in  its  traditional  hold  on  family 
life,  strong  in  its  development  of  a  vast  and  varied 
literature,  strong  in  being  the  only  Christian  institu- 
tion whose  income  is  always  in  excess  of  its  expen- 


200       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

diture,  strong  in  having  in  the  Bible  the  best 
pedagogical  material  in  the  world,  strong  in  retaining 
many  of  its  pupils  for  twenty-five  or  thirty  years, 
strong  in  the  universal  interest  of  young  people  in 
moral  and  religious  problems. 

Nevertheless  the  Sunday-school  is  lamentably 
weak  and  ineffective.  It  is  weak  in  having  only 
thirty  minutes  of  teaching  each  week,  while  the 
public  schools  have  thirty  hours,  weak  in  assembling 
usually  in  a  building  erected  without  class-rooms, 
weak  in  its  untrained  officers  and  teachers,  weak  in 
the  subservience  to  anonymous  "lesson  papers"  as 
fountains  of  authority,  weak  in  its  ungraded  character 
and  its  fear  of  new  truth,  weak  in  its  ignorance  of 
pedagogical  ideals  now  dominant  in  other  schools, 
above  all  weak  in  its  unconscious  substitution  of 
exhortation  for  genuine  education.  I "  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  development  of  religious  intelU- 
gence,"  says  one  of  our  foremost  students  of  edu- 
cation, "the  American  system  must  be  pronounced 
the  most  fragmentary,  partial,  inefficient,  haphazard 
system  in  the  world."  ^0 

Here,  then,  is  the  imrivalled  opportunity  of  the 
modem  pastor.  He  finds  close  at  hand  a  sword 
already  fashioned,  but  rusty  and  sticking  to  its 
scabbard.  He  has  not  to  begin  the  work  of  reKgious 
education  —  it  was    begun    in    the    Sunday-school 

^  Professor  Charles  De  Garmo,  Principles  of  Religious  Edu- 
cation, p.  63. 


THE   DIRECTION   OP   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      201 

more  than  a  century  ago.  He  has  not  to  induce  his 
church  to  organize  a  school,  to  appoint  teachers,  or 
to  set  apart  some  time  for  instruction.  The  machin- 
ery is  at  hand,  though  antiquated  and  creaking, 
and  sometimes  a  mass  of  revolving  wheels  that 
achieve  no  output.  To  take  this  mechanism,  re- 
model it  to  suit  present  need,  to  harness  it  to  new 
sources  of  power,  and  put  it  in  charge  of  the  most 
vital  and  forceful  personalities  in  the  community  — 
this  is  the  pastor's  imperative  task.  No  other  form 
of  work  will  bring  so  rich  results.  Vastly  more 
important  than  the  annual  round  of  pastoral  calls, 
which  may  degenerate  into  mere  social  simpering, 
far  more  promising  than  any  young  people's  societies, 
more  rewarding  than  all  guilds,  settlements,  leagues, 
and  clubs  of  every  kind,  is  the  fundamental  and 
essential  work  of  directing  the  religious  education 
of  the  congregation.  The  pastor  who  succeeds  as 
educational  director  cannot  fail  otherwise.  His 
church  has  touched  the  ultimate  springs  of  power. 
It  is  as  a  tree  planted  by  rivers  of  water,  which  each 
year  adds  new  rings  to  its  growth  and  new  diameters 
to  its  shadow.  Such  a  church  is  always  anticipating 
its  own  future,  and  training  its  own  successors.  The 
pastor  who  depends  mainly  on  his  own  eloquence  or 
ingenuity  or  freshness  of  appeal  will  soon  reach  his 
natural  limits.  The  pastor  who  depends  on  the 
educational  process  applied  in  the  religious  field  is 
steadily  planting  the  com  whose  fruit  shall  shake  like 


202       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

Lebanon.  He  need  not  be  his  own  superintendent, 
or  actually  conduct  a  class.  But  he  must  be  the 
inspiring  and  directing  power  in  the  church  school 
of  religion.  He  can  neglect  that  only  at  the  peril  of 
his  entire  ministry. 

Yet  this  is  the  part  of  the  church  work  for  which 
the  average  preacher  has  neither  training  nor  apti- 
tude nor  inclination.  With  all  possible  respect  to 
Hebrew  scholarship  we  ask :  Might  not  the  seminary 
take  some  of  the  time  now  devoted  to  "Hiphils" 
and  "Hophals"  and  put  it  into  mastery  of  the  work 
of  an  educational  director?  Is  it  a  true  perspective 
which  allows  us  to  spend  much  time  in  learning  how 
to  conduct  prayer-meetings  and  funerals  and  wed- 
dings, and  allows  no  time  for  study  of  the  history  and 
methods  of  religious  education? 

At  what  age  should  children  enter  the  Sunday- 
school?  Is  it  wise  for  parents  as  far  as  possible  to 
instruct  their  children  at  home,  reserving  the  Sunday- 
school  for  those  who  have  little  home  training? 
Shall  we  adapt  the  methods  of  the  kindergarten 
to  religious  teaching?  Should  children  be  taught 
dogmatically,  or  should  they  be  left  to  grow  up  with- 
out any  announcement  of  adult  conclusions?  What 
is  the  ideal  way  of  grading  a  school  ?  Are  our  pub- 
lic schools  satisfied  with  their  grades,  or  are  they 
protesting  against  the  rigid  "lockstep"  which  may 
result?  What  is  the  essential  and  radical  difference 
between  the  "international  system"  and  the  various 


THE   DIRECTION   OF   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      20$ 

substitutes  now  modifying  or  supplanting  it?  Is 
there  any  way  of  appealing  to  the  motor  powers  in 
religious  education,  so  that  the  church  may  have 
its  "manual  training"?  These  are  specimens  of 
scores  and  hundreds  of  questions  that  every  young 
minister  must  face  when  first  he  enters  his  Sunday- 
school.  Inquiries  will  be  flung  at  him  from  every 
side  if  he  attempts  to  alter  the  conventional  routine. 
Is  the  school  a  form  of  worship  or  a  form  of  study  ? 
Is  its  object  to  furnish  a  friendly  teacher  a  chance 
to  deliver  a  "sermonette,"  or  to  enable  a  scholar  to 
master  historical  facts  and  religious  truths?  Should 
the  school  have  its  curriculum  and  its  diplomas 
and  its  graduation  day,  or  remain  a  place  for  the 
friendly  chatting  of  the  church  family?  What  is 
the  best  form  of  building,  the  best  kind  of  training 
class,  the  best  series  of  lesson  helps,  the  best  form  of 
opening  and  closing  exercise?  All  the  fascinating 
problems  that  beset  a  superintendent  of  schools 
will  inevitably  confront  the  modem  minister  if  he 
undertakes  the  religious  education  of  his  people. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  consider  the  technique  of 
Sunday-school  instruction.  But  out  of  all  the  con- 
fusion of  questions  a  few  luminous  and  illuminating 
principles  emerge. 

The  fundamental  principle  is  that  the  Sunday- 
school  is  a  school.  In  it  we  pray,  but  it  is  not  a 
prayer-meeting.  In  it  we  may  use  liturgy,  but  it 
is  not  organized  for  liturgical  worship.    In  it  we 


204       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

may  win  decisions  for  the  Christian  life,  but  such 
decision  is  not  our  only  aim;  if  it  were,  then  we 
should  dismiss  from  the  classes  all  who  have  made  the 
great  decision.  The  supreme  aim  is  the  continuous 
development  of  the  religious  nature,  the  continuous 
education  of  the  pupils  in  Christian  truth  and  duty. 

"  But  do  we  not  want,"  an  adherent  of  the  old  type 
of  Sunday-school  will  say,  **  above  all  things  to 
make  Christians  ?  "  Assuredly.  But  the  making  of 
Christians,  who  will  remain  Christians,  is  best 
achieved  not  by  fervid  and  transient  appeal,  but 
by  implanting  Christian  truth  in  the  pupil's  mind. 
The  truth  is  seed,  which  once  inserted  by  the  educa- 
tional process  can  be  trusted  to  germinate  and  bring 
forth  fruit.  The  teacher  who  leaves  with  her  class 
the  memory  of  personal  pleadings  may  indeed  render 
a  real  service.  But  the  teacher  who  imparts  a  real 
knowledge  of  the  pleading  of  Christ  with  those 
apostles  who  persistently  misunderstood  and  mis- 
construed and  at  last  forsook  him,  has  given  the 
class  memories  and  convictions  which  can  never  be 
lost.  The  child's  mind  is  a  sensitive  plate,  to  be 
imprinted,  not  by  the  pressure  of  the  photographer's 
hand,  but  merely  by  exposure  to  the  light. 

We  do  not  mean  that  the  church  school  is  blindly 
to  copy  the  methods  of  public  schools.  On  the  con- 
trary it  must  be  on  its  guard  against  some  of  the 
errors  into  which  they  have  fallen.  Our  public 
schools    have  unquestionably  suffered  from    over- 


THE   DIRECTION   OP   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      20$ 

emphasis  on  formal  discipline,  on  mere  mental  drill 
apart  from  culture  of  the  emotions  and  strengthening 
of  character.  No  man  wants  to  see  the  Sunday- 
school  made  a  mere  engine  for  the  inculcation  of 
historical  facts,  however  sacred.  A  list  of  Biblical 
dates  is  no  more  nourishing  than  a  list  of  similar 
dates  in  Chinese  history.  Some  of  the  wars  of  Israel 
may  be  of  hardly  more  significance  than  the  feuds 
of  the  ancient  Saxon  tribes.  The  Sunday-school  is 
fully  justified  in  insisting  that  something  more  than 
conveyance  of  knowledge  is  the  object  of  teaching. 
The  day-school  may  learn  much  from  the  steadfast 
adherence  of  the  Sunday-school  to  the  creation  of 
ideals  as  well  as  the  impartation  of  facts.  A  barren 
intellectualism  has  sometimes  made  the  public  schools 
rigid  and  remote  from  life.  The  Sunday-school  is 
quite  right  in  seeking  to  touch  the  springs  of  lofty 
aspiration  and  produce  a  strong  and  noble  character. 
But  the  way  to  do  this  most  effectively  is  by  sharply 
differentiating  the  Sunday-school  from  all  services 
whose  primary  aim  is  worship,  or  fellowship,  or 
exhortation,  and  making  it,  from  opening  bell  to 
closing  hymn,  a  genuine  school. 

Obviously  if  it  is  to  be  a  real  school,  it  must 
occupy  more  time.  A  half-hour  of  instruction  each 
week  cannot  possibly  educate.  No  other  school  in  the 
world  would  expect  any  result  under  such  limitation 
of  efifort.  Either  the  parents  must  supplement  the 
single  session   by  regular  instruction  at  home,  or 


206       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

more  than  one  session  must  be  held.  In  France  every 
Thursday  is  made  a  holiday  in  the  public  schools  in 
order  to  furnish  time  for  religious  instruction.  In 
Germany  every  curriculum  of  the  state  schools 
makes  generous  provision  for  instruction  in  Biblical 
history,  in  the  catechism  and  the  creed.  In  this 
country  such  teaching  could  be  furnished  by  the 
various  denominations  in  their  own  churches, 
either  on  Saturday  or  after  school  on  other  days. 
The  remarkable  growth  of  the  Lutheran  church  in 
America  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  each  Lutheran 
clergyman  regards  himself  primarily  as  the  teacher 
of  the  children  of  the  church,  and  meets  them  at 
regular  hours.  Such  instruction  is  surely  worth 
far  more  than  "junior  prayer-meetings,"  where 
children  may  be  encouraged  in  premature  intro- 
spection and  expression.  Some  pastors  have  already 
found  the  most  delightful  hours  of  the  week  those  in 
which  they  meet  their  children  after  school  is  over. 
More  time  spent  in  this  work  will  give  opportunity 
for  familiarity  with  the  entire  Bible,  opportunity 
for  the  study  of  Christian  history,  Christian  missions, 
denominational  standards,  and  methods  of  Christian 
service. 

If  the  school  is  a  real  school,  it  will  certainly  need 
trained  teachers.  The  charming  girl  with  blue  eyes 
and  golden  hair  is  not  necessarily  able  to  undertake 
the  religious  education  of  our  boys  and  girls.  If  she 
is  not  willing  to  join  a  training  class,  or  study  any  of 


THE   DIRECTION   OP  RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      20^ 

the  methods  of  teaching,  then  she  must  go  into 
some  kind  of  work  where  kindliness  and  good  in- 
tentions are  a  sufficient  equipment.  The  training  of 
teachers  for  their  work  can  be  brought  about  in 
several  ways.  The  most  effective  method  demands 
the  cooperation  of  all  the  churches  in  a  community. 
Wherever  the  churches  will  unite  in  forming  a  nor- 
mal class  or  school,  selecting  and  sending  the  ablest 
of  their  young  men  and  women  as  students,  and 
securing  some  man  of  wide  experience  as  leader  and 
director,  every  participating  church  will  be  enriched 
by  new  access  of  power  in  its  Sunday-school  in- 
struction. If  some  university  is  near  at  hand,  with 
a  department  of  education,  a  most  helpful  affiliation 
of  church  and  university  can  be  formed.  The 
Teachers  College  of  Columbia  University  long  ago 
opened  a  model  Sunday-school,  and  now  offers  to 
religious  teachers  training  under  efficient  guidance. 
Where  no  affiliation  or  cooperation  with  other  in- 
stitutions is  possible,  the  individual  church  can 
establish  its  training  class  for  the  study  of  methods, 
of  the  psychology  of  religion,  of  the  history  of  the 
church,  or  of  particular  parts  of  the  Bible  which  are 
subsequently  to  be  taught  in  other  classes.  Without 
offering  some  such  training  no  church  should  ask 
individuals  to  experiment  in  the  religious  training  of 
our  children.  In  the  majority  of  our  churches  the 
best  teachers  do  not  desire  the  work  they  have  under- 
taken.   They  have  taken  it  up  with  deep  hesitation 


208       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

and  under  urgent  pressure.  They  are  frequently 
discouraged  by  lectures  on  Sunday-school  peda- 
gogy, as  they  see  a  lofty  ideal  set  before  them  and 
no  opportunity  for  attaining  it  offered  in  the  local 
church.  Thus  the  church  is  compelling  its  most 
conscientious  and  sensitive  members  to  make  bricks 
without  straw,  demanding  that  they  assume  the 
high  function  of  religious  interpreters,  but  offering 
no  genuine  preparation  for  the  task. 

Many  pastors  are  looking  to-day  for  a  trained 
Christian  educator  who  can  be  placed  in  charge  of 
all  instruction  given  in  the  Sunday-school,  and  can 
systematically  undertake  the  religious  education  of 
the  entire  parish.  Such  a  man  would  do  a  vastly 
greater  work  than  that  of  the  ordinary  pastor's 
assistant  or  church  missionary.  He  would  select 
teachers,  determine  the  mode  of  their  training,  lay 
out  courses  of  study  for  school  and  home,  establish 
grades,  determine  standards  of  examination  and 
promotion,  and  stimulate  the  whole  congregation  to 
continuous  study  of  the  Scriptures.  Such  a  man 
would  avoid  most  of  the  difficulties  which  beset  the 
usual  assistant  minister.  His  own  work,  being  en- 
tirely outside  the  pulpit,  would  not  come  into  com- 
parison with  it ;  and  the  modern,  like  the  ancient, 
church  would  be  furnished  with  a  recognized  order 
of  teachers  of  the  Christian  faith. 

Let  us  offer  the  teachers  financial  compensation 
if  we  must;  but  there  is  far  greater  reason  for  em- 


THE   DIRECTION  OP  RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      209 

ploying  a  few  experienced  officers  of  the  school. 
We  must  secure  for  such  officers  some  of  the  men 
and  women  who  have  already  proved  their  success 
in  secular  education.  President  Harper  set  us  the 
fine  example  of  the  university  president  serving  as 
Sunday-school  superintendent.  Many  a  school 
principal  taking  charge  of  some  church  school  has 
transformed  its  atmosphere  and  ideals.  We  cannot 
excuse  from  the  service  of  the  church  the  very  men 
and  women  who  know  the  most  about  educational 
method.  If  they  find  the  church  responsive  and  open- 
minded,  they  will  delight  to  bring  to  it  the  results  of 
their  maturest  experience.  The  Sunday-school  can 
easily  cooperate  with  the  superintendent  of  the  pub- 
lic schools,  with  the  public  library,  with  the  vari- 
ous clubs  and  societies  for  intellectual  and  social 
improvement.  It  can  easily  become  a  social  and 
moral  power  in  the  community,  teaching  its  pupils 
to  work  out,  in  a  ministry  of  daily  service,  the  message 
received  from  apostles  and  prophets.  A  study  of 
the  social  ideals  of  Amos  would  set  a  young  men's 
class  aflame  with  zeal  for  civic  betterment.  A  study 
of  the  methods  of  charity  employed  in  the  early 
Christian  church  would  inspire  any  group  of  women 
with  eagerness  to  spend  at  least  one  year  in  testing 
ancient  methods  in  some  modem  city. 

In  many  churches  a  "  mission-study  class  "  for 
adults  has  broadened  immensely  the  horizon  of  a 
group  of  laymen,  and  trained  them  in  methods  and 


210       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

results  of  missionary  effort.  A  band  of  young  men 
who  have  studied  for  six  months  some  such  topic  as 
"new  forces  in  old  China,"  have  been  lifted  out  of 
the  pettiness  of  the  weekly  routine  and  brought  into 
sympathy  with  the  heroism  and  romance  of  militant 
Christianity.  They  are  made  familiar  with  types  of 
Christian  character  outside  their  own  denomination, 
and  with  racial  characteristics  and  developments  far 
outside  their  own  country.  In  many  churches  the 
most  thoughtful  laymen  have  acquired  a  wholly 
new  understanding  of  the  Bible  through  pursuing 
for  successive  winters  some  of  the  courses  of  study 
outlined  by  the  American  Institute  of  Sacred  Litera- 
ture —  courses  which  offer  university  guidance  to 
the  busiest  man  in  the  metropolis,  or  to  the  house- 
wife in  the  remotest  hamlet.^ 

About  graded  instruction  we  need  say  little.  Here 
the  battle  has  been  fought  and  won.  We  all  real- 
ize that  there  must  be  both  grouping  of  the  pupils 
according  to  maturity  and  ability,  and  grading  of  the 
material  according  to  the  pupils  who  are  to  use  it. 
The  visions  of  Ezekiel  and  the  Pauline  discussions  of 

*  In  one  of  the  leading  churches  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  there 
are  five  adult  Bible  classes  devoted  to  the  following  subjects: 
I.  "The  Study  of  the  Bible  as  Literature."  2.  "Biblical  Archae- 
ology." 3.  "The  Ethical  and  Religious  Message  of  the  Bible." 
4.  "The  Social  Significance  of  the  Teaching  of  Jesus."  5. 
"Child  Psychology"  —  for  parents  only.  All  of  these  classes 
are  taught  by  principals  or  experienced  teachers  in  the  public 
schools  of  the  city. 


THE   DIRECTION  OF   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      211 

pagan  iniquity  were  not  meant  for  childhood,  and 
should  be  entirely  ignored  by  all  young  classes. 
Cosmological  theory  can  be  touched  but  lightly  in 
the  earlier  years.  Theological  propositions  have  no 
place  until  more  fundamental  things  are  mastered. 
The  words  and  works  of  Jesus,  or  the  simplest  of  the 
Old  Testament  stories,  may  come  first,  and  then  step 
by  step  the  growing  mind  may  be  led  into  all  the  rich 
inheritance  of  the  Christian  centuries.  A  pupil  thus 
led  can  never  outgrow  the  Sunday-school.  He  may 
wish  for  himself  the  epitaph  written  on  the  grave  of 
John  Richard  Green:  "He  died  learning." 

But  the  educational  leadership  of  the  minister 
will  take  him  far  outside  of  all  Sunday-school  ad- 
ministration. He  must  himself  become  the  teacher 
of  some  portion  of  his  congregation  through  which 
he  may  leaven  all  the  rest.  He  may,  in  rare  cases, 
do  this  on  Sunday.  He  may  do  it  by  forming  a 
men's  class  to  meet  at  any  time  that  proves  most 
convenient.  Such  a  group  of  men  may  become  a 
men's  league,  or  a  class  for  the  discussion  of  current 
topics,  or  a  forum  for  formal  debate  on  moral  and 
religious  issues,  or  a  St.  Andrew's  Brotherhood  for 
specific  ministration.  Leadership  in  such  a  group 
gives  opportunity  for  self-impartation  to  dominant 
minds  in  the  congregation. 

The  prayer  meeting  may  easily  be  turned  into  a 
meeting  for  Biblical  study,  whenever  the  older  type 
of  meeting  may  seem  to  have  done  its  work.    The 


212       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

Sunday  evening  service  may  be  largely  expository 
in  method,  often  to  the  relief  of  both  preacher  and 
congregation.  Courses  of  sermons  —  better  if  not 
of  formidable  length  —  will  give  the  preacher  op- 
portunity to  develop  lines  of  consecutive  thought, 
and  so  save  him  from  the  terrible  desultoriness 
which  is  the  bane  and  peril  of  the  preacher's  life. 
The  subjects  of  sermons  advertised  in  our  Saturday 
newspapers  are  a  revelation  of  the  extremes  to  which 
an  honest  mind  may  be  driven  when  it  has  no  definite 
path  of  advance.  Such  a  mind  may  move,  not  like 
an  ocean  steamship  steering  by  the  stars,  but  like  a 
ferry-boat  bumping  along  the  docks,  until  it  makes 
a  happy  hit  and  stumbles  into  its  desired  haven. 
Such  a  mind  may  put  more  energy  and  agony  into 
finding  a  subject  than  into  unfolding  and  applying 
it. 

The  first  ten  years  of  a  man's  preaching  de- 
termine whether  he  is  to  be  throughout  his  life  a 
scrappy  and  disjointed  mind,  or  whether  he  is  to 
educate  himself  and  his  people  along  certain 
definite  lines.  Some  men's  sermons  are  obviously 
mere  compilations  and  mosaics  —  bits  of  bright- 
ness brought  from  all  the  comers  of  the  earth  and 
stuck  into  a  pleasing  pattern.  Such  productions 
are  essentially  agglutinative  and  reminiscent.  Such 
preachers  are  not  plagiarists  —  they  would  not 
wrong  any  man,  living  or  dead.  They  are  as 
honest  as  the  agglutinative  type  of  mind  can  be. 


THE   DIRECTION   OP   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      213 

But  when  we  listen  to  them,  we  are  conscious  that 
the  whole  method  of  production  moves  on  the  sur- 
face of  things.  There  is  nothing  artesian  and  funda- 
mental in  such  dealing  with  reality.  But  if  dur- 
ing the  first  ten  years  after  a  class  graduates  from 
the  seminary  one  member  of  it  would  devote  him- 
self, for  example,  to  Old  Testament  prophecy,  an- 
other to  the  study  of  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
another  to  modem  methods  of  philanthropy,  an- 
other to  a  study  of  Christian  education,  another  to 
the  influence  of  Christian  ethics,  —  each  man 
preaching  steadily  all  the  time,  and  making  each 
sermon  a  bud  or  branch  from  the  central  stem  of 
his  advancing  study,  —  what  visible  accretion  of 
mental  and  moral  power  we  should  have,  and  what 
influence  such  a  class  might  exert!  Such  men  at 
the  end  of  their  first  ten  years  would  have  not 
merely  a  series  of  sermons,  for  which  they  perhaps 
already  feel  some  distaste,  but  a  grasp  on  some 
realm  of  Christian  knowledge  which  would  enrich 
their  entire  career.  Any  one  subject,  thoroughly  pur- 
sued, is  sure  to  relate  itself  to  many  others  which 
beckon  the  man  steadily  onward,  and  he  is  no  longer 
left  to  the  haphazard  reading  of  the  last  book  loaned 
him  by  a  friend,  or  the  book  which  no  one  else  has 
cared  to  take  from  the  public  library.  Such  men's 
ministry  would  be  educative  in  the  highest  sense. 
The  congregation  would  surely  be  conscious,  with- 
out knowing  why,  that  their  leader  was  constantly 


214       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

gaining  in  breadth  of  horizon  and  power  to  translate 
the  past  into  the  present.  They  as  well  as  their 
pastor  would  be  saved  from  that  discontinuity 
which  leads  straight  into  mental  dissipation  and 
moral  aimlessness,  and  would  grow  with  him  into 
a  manhood  of  larger  stature  and  deeper  power. 

Out  of  such  a  ministry  would  come  that  teach- 
ing evangelism  for  which  the  world  is  still  waiting. 
We  have  already  said  that  since  deliberate  choice 
and  conscious  surrender  are  essential  experiences 
in  religious  development,  a  real  and  vital  evangelism 
must  always  have  place  in  the  Christian  church. 
Reproduction  is  the  proof  of  life;  a  real  religion  is 
forever  propagating  itself  in  regions  beyond.  It 
flings  itself  into  the  service  of  the  truth  and  sallies 
forth  to  win  the  world  to  its  flaming  vision.  With- 
out missionary  zeal  we  could  have  an  Academy,  or 
a  Stoa,  or  a  Parnassus,  but  not  a  Christian  church. 

Why,  then,  does  our  evangelism,  so  zealous  and 
devoted,  produce  so  little  result?  Why  are  many 
churches  declining  longer  to  employ  methods  and 
men  once  esteemed  fruitful?  It  is  because  our 
evangelism  has  been  so  often  separated  from  in- 
struction, and  has  secured  a  decision  from  men  who 
did  not  know  what  they  were  deciding.  When 
we  say, "  Come  to  Jesus,"  and  men  arise  by  the  score 
to  say,  "I  come,"  the  ethical  and  religious  value 
of  such  coming  may  be  great  or  small.  It  would 
be  useless  for  us  to  cry,  ^'Come  io  x  ox  y^^  —  some 


THE   DIRECTION  OF   RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION      21$ 

unknown  quantity.  If  Christ  is  an  unknown 
quantity  to  our  hearers,  their  willingness  to  follow 
has  no  significance.  When  we  say,  "Come  to  the 
platform  of  Tolstoi,"  every  one  knows  what  that  is. 
It  is  the  extreme  doctrine  of  the  non-resistance  of 
evil  as  the  solution  of  earth*s  problems.  When  we 
say,  "Come  to  the  standpoint  of  Henry  George," 
all  men  understand  our  meaning.  It  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  single  tax  as  the  relief  from  social  distress. 
But  when,  after  nineteen  centuries  of  debate  and 
misconstruction,  we  now  say,  "Come  to  Christ," 
does  the  world  really  know  what  we  mean?  To 
show  the  world  what  such  coming  really  involves, 
to  explain  Christ's  attitude  toward  God  and  man, 
toward  the  family  and  the  church,  toward  knowledge 
and  joy  and  sacrifice  and  death  and  eternity,  to 
show  what  it  means  to  enter  into  that  attitude  so 
as  again  to  say,  "Christ  liveth  in  me"  —  that  is  the 
endless  task  of  the  Christian  preacher.  That  is  an 
essential  part  of  the  task  of  the  evangelist.  If  we 
could  show  our  Lord  as  he  really  is,  if  we  could 
strip  ofiF  the  accretions  of  the  centuries  as  men  have 
stripped  off  the  pigments  from  Giotto's  picture  of 
Dante  on  the  church  wall  in  Florence,  if  we  could 
make  clear  the  supreme  miracle  of  Christ's  character, 
would  not  the  world  hasten  to  receive  and  acknowl- 
edge him?  And  if  we  leave  Christ  still  unknown, 
and  get  men  to  go  through  the  motions  of  a  formal 
allegiance,  our  evangelism  has  no  more  value  than 


2l6       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

if  we  had  secured  recruits  for  a  journey  to  the 
mountains  of  the  moon.  The  whole  enterprise  is 
unreal  and  the  whole  decision  futile.  ''Who  art 
thou,  Lord?**  is  the  first  cry  of  the  bewildered  and 
seeking  soul.  Unless  evangelism  can  answer  that, 
it  has  no  place  in  the  Christian  church.  When 
that  is  answered  in  deep  and  searching  instruction, 
we  may  be  sure  that  the  allegiance  of  the  soul 
cannot  long  be  delayed.  A  teaching  evangelism  is 
one  of  the  crying  needs  of  our  age. 

And  this  will  naturally  be  followed  by  a  teaching 
pulpit  in  the  regular  services  of  the  church.  I  do 
not  mean  that  we  need  a  return  to  the  didacticism 
of  a  former  generation.  But  I  mean  a  pulpit  that 
shall  grapple  with  the  intelligence  before  it,  and 
seek  to  move  men  not  only  by  power  of  appeal, 
but  by  genuine  communication  of  truth.  Every 
preacher  may  find  a  keen  delight  in  ministering 
to  the  strongest  minds  in  his  congregation.  Some 
preachers  unconsciously  repel  their  strongest  hearers, 
and  draw  to  themselves  only  the  more  pliant  and 
docile  spirits.  Some  denominations  have  driven 
out  many  of  their  strongest  ministers  and  laymen, 
or  at  least  allowed  them  to  depart,  by  a  repressive 
and  protesting  attitude.  As  Spain  through  its 
Inquisition  banished  or  silenced  her  most  powerful 
and  self-reliant  minds,  as  Italy  by  feud  and  tumult 
drove  from  her  cities  Dante  and  Savonarola,  so 
a  religious  body  may  make  it  difficult  for  original 


THE   DIRECTION   OF   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      21/ 

and  conceiving  spirits  to  live  within  it.  Such  a 
church  must  be  content  with  men  of  the  purely 
receptive  and  innocuous  type,  blameless  and  un- 
achieving.  But  a  strong  and  victorious  ministry 
will  make  stout  appeal  to  strong  men.  It  will  not 
be  content  with  the  r6le  of  trained  nurse,  ministering 
to  the  weak  and  wounded,  but  will  set  the  trumpet 
to  its  lips  and  summon  the  most  courageous  spirits 
of  the  time.  If  it  is  our  duty  to  feed  milk  to  babes, 
it  is  equally  our  duty  to  place  strong  meat  before  men. 
In  listening  to  some  speakers  we  begin  to  discover 
how  many  paths  are  dangerous,  how  few  things  are 
possible,  how  small  life  has  gotten  to  be.  In  listen- 
ing to  others,  we  have  the  sense  of  opening  doors 
and  windows  and  the  inrush  of  morning  light  and 
air.  We  discover,  as  they  speak,  how  many  things 
are  possible  for  us  all,  how  feeble  are  the  lions  in 
the  way,  how  glorious  the  liberty  of  the  children  of 
God.  A  religious  leader  must  be  more  than  a 
builder  of  fences.  He  must  show  us  that,  while 
fences  are  necessary,  the  ledges  underlie  them  and 
the  eagles  soar  over  them  and  the  stars  revolve  above 
them,  and  that  the  pasture  is  but  a  little  part  of 
the  great  and  turning  world.  Thus  the  educational 
ministry  becomes  a  dynamic  ministry.  Because  it 
goes  deep,  it  releases  power.  Because  it  is  patient 
and  willing  to  labor  for  remote  ends,  it  accomplishes 
things  that  no  hurried  worker  can  ever  achieve. 
But  the  minister  must  be  the  leader  of  educational 


2l8       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

forces  in  a  still  larger  sense.  If  the  entire  community 
is,  as  we  have  said,  alive  and  throbbing  with  as- 
piration after  knowledge,  that  aspiration  should 
naturally  look  to  the  minister  for  encouragement 
and  guidance.  I  have  known  a  pastor  to  discour- 
age his  young  people  from  pursuing  Chautauqua 
courses  on  the  ground  that  the  Bible  is  sufficient 
for  young  Christians  to  study.  I  have  known  other 
pastors  to  kindle  in  their  young  people  a  zeal  for 
knowledge  which  has  permeated  the  whole  com- 
munity. A  minister  may  organize  his  eager  young 
minds  into  circles  for  reading,  for  debate,  for  study 
of  literature  or  art  or  history.  He  may  plant  in 
many  a  boy's  mind  an  ambition  which  shall  drive 
him  later  into  college  and  perhaps  into  the  ministry. 
He  may  form  a  guild  for  Bible  study  and  bring  before 
it  some  of  the  foremost  religious  thinkers  of  our  time. 
The  minister  who  each  winter  can  bring  into  a  rural 
community  some  forceful  teacher  of  commanding 
powers,  for  even  a  single  address,  may  stimulate 
minds  long  inert  and  cold  into  enthusiasm  and 
devotion.  The  man  who  brings  before  his  con- 
gregation a  series  of  teachers,  —  the  missionary 
with  his  picturesque  narrative,  the  settlement  worker 
with  his  revelation  of  how  the  other  half  lives,  the 
civic  reformer  with  his  stirring  appeal,  the  archae- 
ologist with  his  latest  discoveries  in  Assyrian  sands 
—  the  man  who  thus  constantly  calls  to  his  aid 
well-known  leaders  of  noble  enterprise  is  enlarging 


THE   DIRECTION   OF   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      219 

the  souls  around  him  by  the  irresistible  processes 
of  education.  Each  congregation  contains  minds 
that  would  eagerly  respond  to  such  stimulus.  It 
is  the  minister's  business  to  know,  or  at  least  to 
know  about,  the  men  and  women  who  are  doing 
things  in  the  modem  world,  and  to  devise  ways 
of  bringing  such  leaders  into  contact  with  the  life 
of  his  parish. 

The  average  church  member  knows  nothing  about 
the  enormous  evils  of  child-labor  in  America.  He 
would  eagerly  offer  personal  ministration  to  one 
little  child  that  he  had  discovered  on  the  curb- 
stone or  in  a  cellar.  But  the  children  that  toil  all 
night  in  the  cotton-mills,  the  little  boys  that  run  to 
and  fro  to  escape  the  molten  masses  in  the  glass 
factory  —  of  them  he  knows  little  or  nothing.  He 
still  lives  in  the  region  of  individualistic  ethics  and 
sporadic  charity.  But  if  the  facts  regarding  child- 
labor  in  this  country  could  be  set  vividly  before  the 
average  church,  and  the  church  could  be  really  in- 
structed as  to  what  has  been  done  and  should  be  done 
to  change  them,  each  church  would  at  once  become 
a  regiment  of  crusaders.  At  present  our  churches 
have  remained  apathetic,  merely  because  untaught. 
A  ministry  which  has  nothing  to  say  regarding  the 
crushing  out  of  young  life  in  this  country  by  the 
industrial  Moloch  is  surely  a  somnolent  affair. 

So  it  is  with  the  various  plans  for  upbuilding  and 
ennobling  the  communities  we  dwell  in.    To  whom 


220       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

should  the  village  improvement  society  look  for 
counsel  and  aid  with  greater  assurance  than  to  the 
minister?  Every  movement  for  civic  betterment, 
for  public  lectures,  for  night  schools,  for  the  study  of 
literature,  for  advancement  of  science,  should  find 
in  the  minister  warmest  support.  If  he,  as  the 
educational  director  of  a  congregation,  is  indifferent 
toward  the  study  of  great  public  issues  and  en- 
deavors, his  people  will  soon  catch  and  reflect  his 
indifference.  If  he  is  hospitable  to  new  forms  of 
effort,  familiar  with  the  latest  methods  in  social 
relief,  a  constant  student  of  economic  and  social 
movements,  the  people  will  naturally  go  to  him  for 
direction  in  reading  and  for  guidance  in  action. 
By  thus  bringing  his  local  church  into  correlation 
with  the  strongest  altruistic  forces  and  the  noblest 
organizations  around  it,  a  minister  is  training  up 
large-hearted  and  broad-minded  men  and  women. 
In  all  this  work  of  Christian  education  the  minister 
has  the  supreme  inspiration  of  dealing  with  young 
and  receptive  minds.  The  men  who  sit  at  the 
head  of  the  pew  on  Sunday  morning  are  probably 
beyond  the  period  when  great  changes  are  possible. 
Just  in  proportion  to  their  success  in  life  may  be 
their  moral  impenetrability.  Why  should  they 
wish  to  remodel  a  life  which  the  world  has  honored, 
or  reconstruct  a  society  which  has  given  them  wealth, 
position  and  influence  ?  They  can  be  strengthened 
in  good  resolves  already  made;    they  can  be  com- 


THE   DIRECTION   OF   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION      221 

forted  in  trouble;  but  their  religious  education  is  at 
an  end,  their  successful  career  has  been  a  finish- 
ing school.  But  scattered  all  over  the  congregation, 
or  assembled  in  close  ranks  in  the  Sunday-school, 
are  the  young  and  open  minds  that  are  ready  for 
intellectual  and  spiritual  adventure.  They  long  to 
move,  to  act,  to  climb,  to  experience.  To  look  down 
on  such  a  gathering  is  like  looking  down  on  hundreds 
of  steam-engines,  standing  on  the  track,  with  the 
steam  up  and  the  mechanism  panting.  There  is 
no  difficulty  in  getting  them  to  move  I  The  only 
difficulty  is  in  getting  them  to  move  oflf  on  the  right 
rails,  to  take  from  the  wilderness  of  interwoven 
tracks  the  single  path  of  shining  steel  which  will 
bring  them  to  the  chosen  city.  The  constant  ab- 
sorbing problem  is  not  to  create  energy  in  our  young 
people,  but  to  give  to  the  energy  they  already  possess 
outlet  and  direction.  We  are  dealing  with  forces 
indestructible  and  mighty,  —  the  appetite  for  knowl- 
edge, the  craving  for  action,  the  aspiration  for 
achievement  and  for  character.  To  organize  and 
guide  such  powers  is  the  minister's  unavoidable 
duty  and  increasing  joy. 


vn 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  AND  THE 
COLLEGE 

"After  God  had  carried  us  safe  to  New  England,  and  ire 
had  builded  our  houses,  provided  necessaries  for  our  liveli- 
hood, reard  convenient  places  for  God's  worship,  and  setled 
the  dvill  government,  one  of  the  next  things  we  longed  for 
and  looked  after  was  to  advance  learning  and  perpetuate 
it  to  posterity,  dreading  to  leave  an  illiterate  ministery  to  the 
churches  when  our  present  ministers  shall  lie  in  the  dust." 
—  New  England's  First  Fruits  (1643). 

"Resolved:  that  we  will  all  heartily  unite  as  one  man  in 
.  .  .  the  affair  of  Building  a  Meeting  House  for  the  public 
worship  of  Almighty  God;  and  also  for  holding  Commence- 
ment in."  —  Records  (1774)  of  First  Baptist  Church  in  Proin- 

dftK€. 


LECTURE  VII 

THE  RELATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  AND  THE 
COLLEGE 

In  an  ideal  society  there  would  exbt  neither 
college  nor  church.  "I  saw  no  temple  therein," 
says  John  of  Patmos,  and  if  we  were  to  complete 
the  vision  we  might  add :  "  I  saw  no  school  therein." 
In  patriarchal  times  the  home  sufficed  both  for  a 
place  of  worship  and  a  place  of  study.  The  father 
was  both  priest  and  pedagogue  to  his  family.  We 
may  imagine  the  coming  of  a  time  when  religion 
in  the  home  shall  be  so  deep  and  pervasive  that  the 
family  altar  shall  be  the  only  altar,  and  when  educa- 
tion shall  come  to  all  —  as  it  came  to  John  Ruskin 
and  John  Stuart  Mill  —  from  parents  and  relatives 
with  little  or  no  instruction  in  formal  schools. 

But  that  time  is  not  yet.  The  home  is  to-day  far 
from  ideal,  and  is  often  lamentably  unfitted  for  the 
training  of  children  or  the  nourishment  of  the  in- 
tellectual life  in  young  men  and  women.  We  must 
remove  them  temporarily  from  the  home  in  many 
cases  in  order  to  develop  and  train  them.  Hence 
as  the  house  of  Justus**  joined  hard  to  the  synagogue," 
the  modem  home  ought  to  join  hard  to  the  church 
on  the  one  side  and  the  school  on  the  other. 

Q  225 


226       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

But  here  comes  the  ever  present  difficulty.  This 
differentiation  of  function  may  lead  to  antagonistic 
attitudes  and  contradictory  results.  If  in  the  church 
the  young  man  finds  the  spirit  of  devotion  upper- 
most and  in  the  college  the  spirit  of  investigation; 
if  on  Sunday  he  is  taught  submission  to  authority 
as  the  highest  duty,  and  on  Monday  the  duty  of 
scrutinizing  all  authority  and  yielding  only  to  reason; 
if  from  the  pulpit  the  great  message  is  one  of  obedi- 
ence, and  from  the  professor's  chair  the  message 
is  one  of  freedom;  if  in  church  the  primary  virtue 
is  self-sacrifice,  and  in  the  college  is  self-realization; 
if  in  the  church  the  Bible  is  made  an  infallible  oracle, 
and  m  the  college  is  made  simply  the  repository 
of  the  legends  of  an  ancient  race;  if  in  the  church 
the  saint  is  the  man  of  humiliation,  self-abasement, 
and  penitence,  while  in  the  college  the  ideal  is  self- 
respect,  courage,  and  achievement  —  what  is  to  be 
the  outcome  in  the  character  of  our  young  people? 
Will  they  react  from  education,  and  fear  the  light 
which  is  yet  to  break  out  of  God's  word?  Will 
they  come  to  share  the  attitude  of  Tolstoi,  to  whose 
severe  asceticism  art,  literature,  science,  law,  and 
the  chief  institutions  of  civilization  are  the  foes  of 
the  primitive  and  genuine  Christian  faith  ?  Or  will 
they  react  from  the  church  of  their  fathers  and  take 
refuge  in  science  and  philosophy  ?  Or  will  they  — 
worst  fate  of  all  —  believe  one  thing  on  Sunday 
and  another  thing  on  Monday,  living  in  more  or 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    22/ 

less  conscious  duplicity  and  self-sophistication? 
No  greater  service  could  one  render  to  the  cause  of 
Christianity  than  to  help  the  college  and  the  church 
into  closer  mutual  understanding  and  cooperation. 
No  greater  need  is  now  upon  us  than  the  need  of 
the  integration  of  the  intellectual  and  the  religious 
life  of  our  time.  What  are  the  elements  in  the 
problem?  What  is  the  nature  of  this  obvious 
antithesis? 

I.  The  college  has  undergone  a  complete  in- 
tellectual revolution  in  the  last  forty  years,  and  the 
church  has  not.  How  extraordinary  that  revolution 
is,  may  be  seen  from  reading  in  Senator  Hoar*s 
"Reminiscences"  his  description  of  the  nature  of 
the  instruction  he  received  as  a  boy  in  Harvard 
College.  In  the  personnel  of  the  faculty,  in  the 
relations  of  the  faculty  and  students,  in  the  ideals 
of  life,  in  the  attitude  toward  the  physical  and  the 
mental  world,  in  the  method  of  approach  to  every 
study,  in  the  criteria  of  truth,  in  the  attitude  of  the 
student  toward  the  unknown  and  the  infinite,  there 
has  been  a  startling  change. 

In  our  colleges  the  study  of  modem  physical 
science  has  introduced  a  degree  of  objectivity  into 
all  study  which  was  almost  unknown  in  the  days 
of  our  fathers.  The  study  of  literature  naturally 
and  necessarily  produces  reverence  for  great  names, 
regard  for  authority,  acceptance  of  established 
standards,  and  a  conservative  attitude  toward  in- 


228       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

stitutions  civil  and  religious.  The  study  of  science 
on  the  other  hand  necessarily  and  rightly  produces 
reverence  for  fact  rather  than  for  authority,  cul- 
tivates the  spirit  of  inquiry  and  personal  investi- 
gation, and  inclines  one  to  a  critical  attitude  toward 
accepted  canons  and  established  institutions.  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  Oxford  has  for  centuries  been 
the  home  of  English  conservatism,  while  the  German 
university,  with  its  great  development  of  science, 
has  been  the  home  of  many  radical  theories  and 
movements.  But  our  colleges,  though  founded 
on  the  Oxford  plan,  have  in  the  past  thirty  years 
been  passing  under  the  influence  of  German  ideals. 
The  method  of  teaching  has  been  steadily  away 
from  the  formal  recitation,  requiring  of  the  student 
passive  listening  and  repetition,  and  toward  the 
laboratory  method,  in  which  the  student  actually 
does  the  work  under  the  teacher's  supervision,  and 
learns  to  draw  his  own  conclusion.  Students  trained 
under  such  a  method  think  of  truth,  not  as  a  com- 
pleted deposit  to  be  received  with  becoming  humility, 
but  as  a  growing  possession  to  be  won  by  each  man 
for  himself.  They  apply  the  scientific  method 
not  only  in  physics  and  chemistry,  but  in  language 
and  history  and  political  economy.  Under  the 
old-fashioned  college  curriculum,  the  unity  of  the 
students  consisted  in  the  fact  that  all  were  passing 
through  the  same  course  of  study.  Under  present 
conditions  the  unity  is  found  in  the  fact  that  all  the 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    229 

Students,  whether  in  philosophy,  or  engineering, 
or  biology,  or  history,  pursue  the  same  inductive 
method  of  observation  of  facts,  classification  of 
facts,  inference,  verification,  and  conclusion. 

But  this  method  of  approach  to  truth  is  still 
struggling  for  recognition  in  our  churches.  The 
student  in  a  chemical  laboratory,  when  he  finds 
that  a  certain  reaction  has  produced  a  wholly 
unexpected  result,  is  aroused  and  delighted.  Noth- 
ing would  please  him  so  much  as  the  discovery  of 
some  entirely  novel  fact,  compelling  the  recon- 
struction of  his  theory.  He  regards  all  theories  as 
working  hypotheses  to  be  modified  and  superseded 
as  men  come  ever  closer  to  reality.  Nothing  in 
recent  intellectual  history  is  more  striking  than  the 
attitude  of  men  of  science  toward  the  discovery 
of  the  radio-active  substances.  Instead  of  mani- 
festing chagrin  because  their  previous  theory  of  the 
constitution  of  matter  was  imperilled,  instead  of 
resentment  toward  the  discoverer,  our  chemists 
and  physicists,  the  world  over,  showed  keenest 
interest  in  the  new  discovery,  patiently  interrogated 
the  evidence,  and  quietly  began  to  make  room  for 
it  in  their  fundamental  theory.  Would  an  ecclesi- 
astical council  have  shown  the  same  temper  if 
confronted  with  entirely  new  facts  regarding  the 
origin  of  the  Hebrew  tabernacle,  or  the  development 
of  the  New  Testament  canon  ?  Would  a  minister's 
conference   always  show   the  same   temper  when 


230       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

discussing    temperance    instruction    in    our    public 
schools  ? 

It  will,  of  course,  be  said  that  the  investigation 
of  the  action  of  radium  is  a  purely  impersonal 
matter  remote  from  our  daily  interests;  and  that 
this  detached  scientific  attitude  is  quite  impossible 
when  men  come  to  deal  with  vital  questions  of  morals 
and  religion.  But  does  this  mean  that  in  one  realm 
of  study  we  may  expect  candor,  and  in  the  other  may 
not?  Does  it  mean  that  we  must  have  one  set  of 
men  to  study  the  use  of  alcohol  in  the  arts,  and 
another  set  of  men,  with  different  temper  and 
different  rules  of  evidence,  to  study  the  effect  of 
alcohol  on  the  human  body?  Then  indeed  we  are 
in  evil  case.  If  it  be  true,  as  it  surely  is,  that  in 
discussing  great  economic  and  social  and  moral 
problems,  our  human  nature  is  stirred  to  its  very 
depths,  and  our  primal  hopes  and  fears  are  in- 
volved, all  the  greater  is  the  need  of  men  of  such 
training  and  open-minded  habit  that  they  will  never 
bend  facts  to  wishes  or  judge  truth  by  its  conse- 
quences to  themselves.  The  existence  of  these 
two  attitudes  toward  truth  is  perhaps  the  chief 
cause  to-day  of  the  bewilderment  of  our  young 
people. 

In  a  religious  paper  recently  there  appeared  an 
earnest  argument  for  the  observance  of  the  two 
church  ordinances.  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper, 
urging  that,  whatever  textual  criticism  might  say, 


RELATION  OF  CHUKCH  AND  COLLEGE    23 1 

those  sacred  riles  must  have  been  established  by 
Christ  himself,  since  it  was  inherently  probable 
that  Christ  would  have  gathered  up  the  central 
truths  of  his  religion  and  have  embodied  them  in 
two  so  simple,  beautiful,  and  significant  ceremonies. 
But  this  method  of  reasoning  is  one  that  could  never 
be  used  by  the  man  of  truly  modem  education.  He 
has  long  ago  learned  to  distrust  all  arguments  from 
fitness  and  inherent  probability,  and  to  ask  not 
what  might  well  be,  but  what  was  and  is.  In  the 
theological  seminary  some  of  us  were  instructed, 
as  the  first  reason  for  believing  in  the  inspiration 
of  the  Scriptures,  that  it  was  "antecedently  prob- 
able" that  a  divine  being  would  reveal  himself, 
and  would  preserve  that  revelation  in  written  form 
for  the  guidance  of  men.  Such  an  argument, 
whatever  its  intrinsic  value,  makes  no  impression 
whatever  on  the  man  educated  in  the  last  thirty 
years,  or  the  man  who  is  in  touch  with  the  thinking 
of  the  present  day.  Nothing  is  sadder  than  to  see 
in  many  a  modem  church  an  earnest  faithful  preacher, 
and  before  him  a  group  of  college  students  to  whom 
the  preacher's  entire  utterance  is  not  only  uncon- 
vincing but  fairly  unintelligible.  Even  when  he 
and  they  hold  the  same  tmth,  they  hold  it  in  such 
dififerent  ways  and  express  it  in  such  different  terms, 
that  neither  can  be  understood  by  the  other.  The 
basal  assumption,  the  method  of  reasoning,  the  entire 
vocabulary  employed  in  the  modem  church,  is  dif- 


232        EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

ferent  from  that  of  the  modem  school.  The 
Protestant  church  does  not  indeed  use  Latm  as  the 
vehicle  of  its  worship.  But  an  ancient  language 
would  be  no  more  a  barrier  to  modem  men  than 
ancient  modes  of  conceiving,  defending,  and  apply- 
ing truth.  In  this  twofold  vocabulary  lies  a  prob- 
lem demanding  the  serious  study  of  all  preachers 
and  teachers. 

2.  The  college  stands  for  analysis  as  the  instru- 
ment of  knowledge ;  the  church,  whether  by  instinct 
or  by  intention,  exalts  synthesis  as  the  foundation 
of  both  theology  and  life. 

A  child  looks  out  of  the  window  on  a  distant 
forest  and  is  taught  to  pronounce  the  word  ''forest." 
But  the  child  has  only  a  dim  and  blurred  idea  of 
what  the  word  means.  His  thought  of  it  is  a  mere 
unanalyzed  impression.  In  later  years  the  growing 
boy  goes  out  into  that  forest  and  threads  its  wind- 
ing paths.  He  learns  to  distinguish  pine  and 
hemlock,  oak  and  maple  and  cedar;  learns  where 
the  birds  build  their  nests;  where  the  mayflowers 
hide  under  the  leaves;  where  the  nuts  fall  and  the 
squirrels  chatter.  Now  the  boy  begins  to  put 
together  the  ideas  gained  out  of  these  varied  ex- 
periences, and  to  construct  a  wholly  new  conception 
of  the  thing  we  call  "forest."  When  now  he  hears 
that  word,  there  comes  before  his  mind,  not  the 
blurred  and  childish  image,  not  the  hearsay  gained 
from  some  book  or  teacher,  but  the  distinct  and 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    233 

vivid  experience  gained  by  repeated  personal  in- 
spection of  the  woods. 

Our  boys  usually  come  to  college  with  just  such 
blurred  ideas  of  truth.  Religion  to  many  of  them 
consists  in  attending  a  certain  church,  or  observing 
certain  ceremonies,  or  reciting  a  certain  creed. 
Patriotism  is  the  waving  of  banners  and  marching 
in  procession.  Success  is  achieving  wealth  by 
manipulation  of  laws  and  of  men.  Freedom  is 
being  set  loose  from  obedience  to  law.  Knowledge 
is  something  contained  in  books,  and  to  be  recited 
under  fear  of  failure  and  disgrace.  Law  is  a  set  of 
statutes  which  men  of  a  past  generation  have  some- 
how imposed  on  the  men  of  to-day.  Government 
is  a  chance  for  the  achievement  of  personal  dis- 
tinction through  obedience  to  the  party  leaders. 
Home  is  a  richly  furnished  house  in  which  one  can 
lavishly  entertain  a  host  of  admiring  friends. 

At  once  the  college  takes  those  boys  of  blurred 
vision,  and  begins  to  stir  up  their  preconceived  ideas. 
After  the  drill  of  freshman  year  is  over,  the  college 
sets  the  student  face  to  face  with  the  ancient  problems. 
It  teaches  him  the  primary  duty  of  personal  inves- 
tigation. It  bids  him  cross-question  his  own  ex- 
perience. It  asks  him  what  he  really  means  by 
freedom,  success,  patriotism,  religion.  It  asks 
him  what  is  the  true  place  in  our  civilization  of 
knowledge,  of  law,  of  government,  of  the  home. 
Unless  the  student  is  a  very  block,  he  is  aroused, 


234       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

bewildered,  thrilled,  when  set  face  to  face  in  the 
class-room  with  the  inquiries:  What  is  the  soul? 
Is  it  series  of  sensations,  or  immortal  entity  ?  What 
are  human  rights  —  mere  conventions  of  society, 
or  inalienable  and  eternal?  Is  private  property  a 
modem  fetich,  or  a  divine  bestowal?  Is  socialism 
the  revival  of  primitive  Christianity,  or  its  antip- 
odes? Is  patriotism  a  narrowing,  or  an  enlarge- 
ment of  the  individual?  Is  government  a  shrewd 
device  of  the  few  to  restrain  the  many,  or  are  the 
powers  that  be  ordained  of  God?  Is  the  home 
a  disappointment  and  a  tyranny,  or  is  it  the  basis  of 
civilization?  Is  life  itself  the  cunning  and  transient 
combination  of  molecules,  or  is  it  shot  through  with 
eternal  meaning? 

The  student  faces  these  world-old  problems  for 
at  least  three  years  in  the  open  discussions  of  the 
class-room  and  the  free  experiments  of  the  laboratory. 
No  true  college  is  now  content  to  offer  a  set  of  dog- 
matic answers.  The  university  method  —  whether 
wisely  or  unwisely  —  has  been  carried  down  into 
the  college  years.  The  college  no  longer  seeks  to 
teach  the  student  what  is  true  in  all  fields  of  study, 
but  to  give  him  the  love  of  truth  and  show  him  the 
way  to  find  it.  The  college  shows  him  that  the 
way  to  truth  in  all  realms  is  by  analysis  of  the  facts 
in  our  possession.  By  breaking  up  the  ideas  we 
already  possess  into  their  component  parts,  by 
separating  the  rock  into  its  constituents,  by  ana- 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    23$ 

lyzing  the  ore  into  its  elements,  by  dissecting  the 
body  into  its  tissues  and  filaments,  by  dividing 
and  subdividing  the  epic  or  history  into  documents 
—  by  subjecting  all  the  world  within  and  without 
to  the  critical,  dissolving  process  of  mental  analysis, 
we  take  the  first  essential  step  in  grasping  its  hidden 
meaning.  The  college  must  seize  the  student, 
as  it  were,  by  the  coat-collar,  and  shake  him  out  of 
dogmatic  slumber.  It  must  show  him  how  little 
he  knows,  how  baseless  are  many  of  his  prejudices, 
how  easy  is  illusion,  and  awakens  him  to  a  life-long 
enthusiasm  in  the  search  for  truth.  This  is  a  peri- 
lous but  essential  process.  Those  who  pass  through 
it  under  wise  and  strong  guidance  become  men  of 
intellectual  and  moral  power.  Those  who  never  pass 
through  it  remain  either  dogmatists  or  children  — 
in  either  case  unawakened  and  afraid. 

But  the  work  of  the  church  is  obviously  different, 
or  rather  it  is  with  a  different  emphasis.  It  deals 
with  motive  rather  than  with  process,  with  personal 
purpose  and  result  rather  than  with  mechanical 
cause  and  effect.  It  seeks  to  combine  the  scattered 
aims  and  hopes  and  insights  of  each  individual  man 
into  a  single  world-view,  and  give  him  a  single 
animating  purpose  to  live  by,  and  if  need  be  to  die 
by.  It  offers  each  man  a  vision  of  the  nearness  of 
God  and  the  meaning  of  life,  and  demands  of  each 
man  a  supreme  consecration  of  his  whole  being  to 
one  great  end. 


236       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

Here  surely  is  ample  opportunity  for  misunder- 
standing and  antagonism.  Happily  the  antagonism 
between  college  and  church  is  far  less  than  a  century 
ago.  At  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  in 
one  famous  New  England  college  the  students  dubbed 
themselves  with  the  names  of  noted  scoffers  at  re- 
ligion, and  in  another  only  two  students  could  be 
found  who  ventured  to  call  themselves  Christians. 
At  that  time  atheism  was  the  badge  of  culture,  and 
when  the  poet  Shelley  was  leaving  Oxford,  banished 
because  of  his  disbelief,  he  wrote  in  the  album  of  an 
English  inn:  "Percy  Bysshe  Shelley  —  student, 
philanthropist,  atheist."  That, bit  of  bravado  would 
be  impossible  for  any  student  to-day.  Unbelief  has 
grown  modest,  and  faith  has  grown  kind. 

But  still  the  antithesis  between  the  attitude  of 
analysis  and  the  attitude  of  obedience  remains, 
requiring  much  mutual  tolerance,  conference,  and 
cooperation  on  the  part  of  college  and  church.  If 
the  analytic  habit  inculcated  by  education  shall  de- 
generate into  the  mere  habit  of  objection,  into  arro- 
gant assumption,  paralyzing  all  power  to  reach  con- 
clusions and  to  act,  then  the  college  becomes  the  foe 
of  the  inner  life.  If  the  obedience  demanded  by 
the  church  is  mere  submission  to  external  authority, 
mere  closing  of  the  eyes  to  facts  in  order  to  avoid 
debate  and  delay,  then  the  church  becomes  the  foe 
of  truth  and  of  Him  who  is  the  truth.  If  the  college 
selects  for  its  teachers  men  dominated  by  intellectual 


RELATION  OP  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    23/ 

curiosity  but  devoid  of  moral  earnestness,  and  if  the 
church  exalts  as  its  ministers  men  in  whom  good 
intentions  have  replaced  intellectual  veracity  and 
fearlessness,  then  the  college  and  the  church  will 
constantly  clash  and  our  young  people  be  left  baffled 
and  distracted. 

3.  The  church  stands  for  religion  conceived  chiefly 
as  worship,  while  the  type  of  religion  found  in  our 
colleges  makes  more  of  action  than  of  devotional 
exercises,  and  emphasizes  not  so  much  the  forms  of 
worship  as  the  altruistic  spirit.  It  is  clear  that 
worship,  the  utterance  of  the  soul  to  God,  is  not  only 
the  highest  exercise  of  which  man  is  capable,  but  is 
essential  to  the  maintenance  of  Christianity  in  the 
world.  Without  it  Christianity  would  sink  to  the 
level  of  humanitarianism  and  the  church  become 
a  mere  mutual  improvement  society.  Yet  it  has 
been  questioned  whether  the  modem  emphasis  on 
religious  services,  and  the  endeavor  to  secure  the 
attendance  of  the  public  upon  them,  finds  much  sup- 
port in  the  New  Testament.  Apparently  the  stated 
services  of  the  early  church  were  for  the  members 
only,  while  the  contact  with  the  world  outside  was 
chiefly  in  the  form  of  helpful  human  service,  or  in 
public  address  apart  from  formal  worship. 

However  that  may  be,  we  must  acknowledge  that 
the  college  student  of  our  day  does  not  find  as  much 
profit  in  devotional  exercise  as  did  his  father  before 
him.    Attendance  of  college  men  at  church  has  greatly 


238       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

diminished,  and  in  some  places  almost  ceased. 
The  college  prayer-meeting  is  not  as  effective  or 
useful  as  thirty  years  ago,  while  the  college  Bible 
class  and  social  settlement  are  far  stronger  than  ever 
before.  Reverence  is  not  a  characteristic  attitude 
I  of  American  youth.  But  a  keener  sense  of  honor, 
a  deeper  perception  of  the  obligations  of  truth  and 
courtesy  and  chivalry,  and  a  sincerer  desire  than  ever 
before  to  be  of  service  to  one's  fellows  are  prevalent 
among  college  men.  This  change  in  the  college  is 
only  part  of  a  change  in  our  whole  generation.  The 
desire  to  penetrate  through  forms  to  reality,  the 
interpretation  of  religion  in  terms  of  action  rather 
than  terms  of  assent,  the  eager  desire  to  express  the 
Christian  spirit  through  social  service  —  these  are 
marks  of  the  whole  temper  of  the  modem  Christian 
world.    \ 

Certainly  this  antithesis  is  not  fundamental  or 
hopeless.  When  our  universities  are  insisting  on 
cap  and  gown  and  gorgeous  hood  and  stately  pro- 
cession, and  are  returning  to  the  mediaeval  ceremonial 
on  many  public  occasions,  they  cannot  consistently 
ignore  the  power  of  religious  functions  in  which 
great  assemblies  symbolize  religious  faith.  When 
current  Christianity  is  daily  returning  more  fully  to 
the  standpoint  of  Christ,  it  cannot  refuse  to  recog- 
nize Christlike  action  as  the  test  and  proof  of  genuine 
religion. 

4.   The  church  stands  in  the  popular  mind  for  a 


RELATION  OP  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    239 

religion  of  crises;  the  college  naturally  stands  for  a 
religion  of  growth.  The  church  with  its  summons 
to  repentance,  its  teaching  of  the  new  birth,  its  doc- 
trine of  a  final  judgment-seat  before  which  we  shall 
all  appear,  everywhere  emphasizes  the  religious  life 
as  a  solemn  choice,  a  deliberate  turning  from  sin  to 
righteousness,  an  act  of  volition,  free  and  responsible. 
The  college  naturally  emphasizes  religion  as  culture, 
as  a  growth  in  the  soul  of  man,  a  gradual  unfolding 
of  a  higher  life,  a  progressive  impartation  of  the  life 
of  God  to  the  soul  of  man.  Any  distinct  and  avowed 
evangelistic  efifort  of  the  older  type  is  now  distrusted 
in  our  larger  colleges  as  an  invasion  of  personality, 
as  an  appeal  to  emotion  apart  from  reason,  and  as 
better  suited  to  the  rescue  mission  than  the  academic 
hall.  By  all  modem  teachers  the  mind  of  the  stu- 
dent is  conceived  as  a  growing  organism,  unfolding 
as  does  the  seed,  and  needing  chiefly  nutriment  and 
light.  Hence  our  teachers  and  students  generally 
are  averse  to  any  forcing  process  in  the  realm  of 
mind,  and  they  look  upon  religious  development,  not 
as  volcanic  and  catastrophic,  but  as  the  quiet  unfold- 
ing of  the  soul  under  the  inner  guidance  of  the  ever 
present  Spirit.  They  incline  in  many  cases  to  a 
monistic  view  of  the  world,  and  to  the  interpretation 
of  history  as  a  ceaseless  evolution  of  resident  forces 
acting  under  law. 

The  church,  on  the  other  hand,  feels  that  it  must  at 
all  hazards  affirm  the  freedom  of  man,  the  power  of 


240       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN  THE   MINISTRY 

sovereign  choice.  It  is  strongly  inclined  to  dualism 
in  philosophy  and  religion.  It  refuses  to  assent  to 
any  reign  of  law  which  can  be  understood  as  an 
abdication  of  personality.  It  protests  against  the 
paralysis  of  a  naturalistic  view  of  the  world,  and 
resists  the  "block-universe"  of  determinism  as  the 
foe  of  ethics  and  religion.  It  summons  every  man 
to  an  immediate  decision,  by  which  he  shall  forever 
identify  his  personal  life  with  the  life  of  God. 

Here  again  is  the  antithesis  due  chiefly  to  a  dif- 
ference of  approach  and  emphasis.  The  churches 
are  steadily  coming  to  realize  more  deeply  the  need 
of  Christian  nurture,  the  emptiness  of  mere  for- 
mal decision,  the  necessity  of  the  training  of  young 
Christians  in  truth  and  duty.  On  the  other  hand,  our 
psychologists,  trained  in  university  laboratories,  are 
to-day  everywhere  asserting  that  normal  growth  is 
not  always  at  even  pace,  that  the  mind  has  its  epochs 
of  development,  its  crises  and  transformations,  and 
that  true  life  is  too  full  of  surprises  to  be  safely  pre- 
dicted and  labelled.  But  the  difference  in  emphasis 
remains.  The  Pauline  conversion  is  still  regarded 
in  our  churches  as  the  standard  and  typical  expe- 
rience, while  the  college  looks  rather  for  a  gradual 
increase  of  vision  and  a  progressive  surrender  to 
ideals. 

What  suggestions  now  can  be  made  as  to  the  more 
intimate  understanding  and  closer  alliance  of  college 
and  church  in  advancing  the  kingdom  of  truth? 


RELATION  OP  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    24 1 

What  can  preachers  and  teachers  of  to-day  do  to 
bring  about  this  alliance  ? 

We  need  first  of  all  to  secure  and  develop  in  the 
college  some  large  codrdinating  and  unifying  pur- 
pose. This  the  church  in  large  measure  already 
possesses.  The  best  private  schools  of  our  eastern 
and  middle  states  already  possess  it;  they  are  closely 
knit  by  a  single  dominant  aim  which  moulds  every 
pupil  from  the  day  of  entrance  to  the  day  of  gradu- 
ation. The  college  of  seventy-five  years  ago  was 
inwardly  correlated  and  unified  by  a  single  ideal,  — 
a  course  of  study  to  be  pursued,  and  a  type  of  char- 
acter to  be  achieved,  by  every  student.  But  the 
college  of  to-day  is  often  "moving  about  in  worlds 
half  realized."  It  has  gained  greatly  in  aggressive 
effort,  and  lost  in  self-consistency.  It  has  often 
added  new  departments  or  courses  because  some 
donor  happened  to  be  interested,  not  because  pres- 
ident or  faculty  planned  or  desired  them.  It  has 
enormously  gained  in  extent,  and  become  quite 
uncertain  as  to  its  intent.  The  smaller  colleges  often 
retain  a  compactness  of  structure  and  vividness  of 
ideal  which  fully  compensate  for  lack  of  coveted 
equipment.  But  our  larger  institutions  have  some- 
times sprawled  into  sudden  bigness,  enlarging  by 
pressure  from  without,  instead  of  developing  from 
a  purpose  within.  Hence  the  multiplicity  of  courses, 
the  disconnected  glimpses  of  truth  gained  from 
unrelated    departments,  the    conflicting    standards 


242       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

and  outlooks,  usually  arouse  and  feed  the  student's 
curiosity,  but  leave  him  hungry  for  a  working  theory 
of  life.  On  the  day  of  his  graduation  he  knows  far 
more  facts  than  his  father  knew  at  the  same  age, 
but  is  not  nearly  so  certain  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
facts  or  the  purpose  and  goal  of  his  own  life.  He 
feels  a  dim  and  vague  disappointment  at  the  end  of 
his  course,  —  every  college  administrator  has  met 
that  feeling,  —  because  the  institution  for  which  he 
has  shouted  and  fought  in  so  many  famous  contests 
has  given  him  a  vast  array  of  knowledge,  but  failed 
to  bring  it  to  a  focus  in  any  definite  view  of  human 
institutions  and  duties.  We  may  have  put  the  boy 
for  four  years  under  a  series  of  unrelated  specialists 
—  as  if,  wishing  him  to  build  up  a  weak  constitution, 
we  had  sent  him  in  swift  succession  to  an  oculist, 
an  aurist,  a  dentist,  an  orthopedist,  and  expected  him 
by  faithfully  following  all  their  prescriptions  at  once 
to  attain  robust  and  vigorous  health.  One  of  our 
well-known  educators  has  suggested  that  we  need 
in  every  institution  a  ''professorship  of  things  in 
general."  At  least  we  need  teachers  who  have  not 
gained  erudition  in  a  small  province  by  willing 
blindness  to  all  other  human  interests.  We  need 
somehow  to  give  our  students  power  to  ''see  life 
steadily  and  see  it  whole." 

Many  of  our  colleges  are  beginning  to  realize 
that  they  have  gone  far  enough  in  submitting  to 
German  ideals,  and  are  now  —  notably  in  the  sys- 


RELATION  OP  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    243 

tern  of  preceptors  recently  established  at  Princeton  — 
returning  to  the  older  ideals  of  Oxford.  We  have 
long  enough  exalted  the  laboratory  at  the  expense  of 
the  library.  In'  the  laboratory  men  may  test  truth, 
but  in  the  library  they  discover  it.  With  retort  and 
microscope  they  may  learn  the  facts  regarding  certain 
portions  of  matter,  but  only  by  thinking  and  re- 
thinking, by  induction  and  imagination  do  they  hit 
upon  the  law  which  coordinates  and  illuminates 
their  facts.  For  what  we  call  new  truth  is  simply 
the  new  combination  of  old  ideas,  and  such  combina- 
tion comes  to  us  when  in  contact  with  the  world 
of  thought  rather  than  the  world  of  materials. 
Darwin's  great  generalization  occurred  to  him, 
not  when  gathering  specimens  on  his  long  voyage, 
but  when  reading  the  famous  essay  of  Malthus  on 
population. 

It  will  not  do  to  set  adrift  the  callow  freshman,  at 
the  age  of  eighteen,  in  some  room  devoted  to  "re- 
search," and  expect  him  to  discover  all  truth  afresh. 
It  is  not  good  for  every  sophomore  to  have  imposed 
upon  his  immaturity  the  methods  of  the  graduate 
school  or  the  German  seminary.  He  needs  guidance, 
suggestion,  inspiration,  quite  as  much  as  test-tubes 
or  microscopes.  He  needs  personal  human  help, 
the  contagion  of  scholarly  minds  and  noble  characters, 
more  than  he  needs  all  syllabi  and  reference  libraries. 
When  Mark  Hopkins  taught  at  Williams  College,  he 
instructed  the  entire  senior  class  in  all  their  studies 


244       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN    THE    MINISTRY 

throughout  the  senior  year.  We  can  never  return, 
and  have  no  wish  to  return,  to  that  condition  of 
things  in  the  American  college.  It  is  easy  to  show 
how  much  we  have  gained  in  variety  of  method, 
in  electives,  in  specific  and  technical  equipment  on 
the  part  of  our  teachers.  It  is  easy  to  show  also  how 
much  we  have  lost  in  selecting  as  teachers  so  many 
young  men  just  out  of  college,  or  doctors  of  philos- 
ophy who  are  full  of  a  subject  but  not  yet  clear  as 
to  their  object.  It  is  easy  to  show  that  teaching  is 
more  accurate  and  informing  than  forty  years  ago, 
but  hard  to  show  that  it  is  more  efficient  in  power  to 
mould,  to  summon,  to  inspire.  Our  colleges  must 
renew  their  allegiance  to  their  earlier  ambition. 
They  must  exalt  the  creative  above  the  critical  im- 
pulse. They  must  decline  to  estimate  growth  in 
terms  of  endowment,  or  gates  and  towers,  or  great 
buildings  whose  maintenance  is  annually  provided 
for  by  keeping  down  the  compensation  of  the  teach- 
ing body.  They  must  persistently  think  more  of 
men  than  of  materials;  more  of  men  that  can  teach 
than  of  those  who  can  write  dissertations;  more  of 
making  useful  citizens  than  of  gaining  athletic 
victory  or  social  prestige. 

Our  theological  seminaries  need  the  exaltation  of 
the  creative  impulse  quite  as  much  as  our  colleges. 
Dr.  Richard  Salter  Storrs  frankly  confessed  that  his 
course  m  the  seminary  left  him  so  self-critical  and 
fastidious  that  he  was  distinctly  a  poorer  preacher 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    24$ 

at  the  end  of  the  three  years  than  at  the  beginning. 
The  aim  of  the  seminary  should  be,  not  to  produce 
theological  professors,  but  to  train  preachers  for  the 
active  service  of  the  church.  A  dozen  teachers  of 
the  New  Testament  Greek  would  suffice  for  all  the 
seminaries  and  universities  in  the  eastern  states  for 
a  quarter  century.  But  many  hundred  ministers 
will  be  needed  during  the  same  period  to  direct  the 
broadening  activities  of  the  modem  church,  and  to 
interpret  the  mind  of  Christ  to  the  mind  of  America. 
No  mere  linguistic  training,  no  familiarity  with  out- 
grown heresies,  will  equip  our  ministers  for  this  task. 
There  are  some  philologists  who  regard  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  with  precisely  the  same  interest  with 
which  the  entomologist  regards  a  collection  of  insects. 
There  are  men  who  decompose  the  prophecies  of 
Isaiah  with  the  same  zeal  as  that  of  the  chemist  in 
analyzing  a  new  baking  powder.  But  the  chemist 
never  dreams  that  his  analysis  may  be  a  substitute 
for  bread.  Equally  useless  is  it  to  imagine  that  any 
analysis  of  documents  or  periods  can  by  itself  give 
us  men  of  leadership  and  commanding  insight. 

A  single  term  may  be  enough  for  the  study  of  all 
the  heresies  that  have  ever  distracted  the  Christian 
church.  We  need  far  more  time  than  we  now  have 
in  our  seminaries  for  the  study  of  missions,  of 
Christian  ethics,  of  religious  psychology,  of  sociology, 
of  the  methods  of  charity,  of  the  relation  of  social 
reform  to  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.    The 


246       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

department  of  homiletics  in  the  modern  theological 
seminary  is  especially  rich  in  unrealized  possibilities. 
Long  enough  has  it  dealt  merely  with  the  making  of 
skeletons  and  the  devices  of  sacred  rhetoric.  It 
should  be  the  cutting-edge  of  the  entire  seminary 
instruction.  It  is  the  meeting  point  between  the  vast 
stores  of  new  knowledge  the  world  has  now  acquired 
and  the  actual  entrance  of  that  knowledge  into  hu- 
man lives  as  inspiring  and  transforming  power.  It 
may  do  for  theological  education  what  the  "case 
system"  has  done  for  legal  education  and  what  the 
clinic  has  done  in  the  study  of  medicine.  It  may 
bring  the  students  into  vitalizing  contact  with  the 
most  influential  ministers  of  our  generation.  It 
should  keep  every  student  preaching  or  teaching  on 
every  Sunday  during  his  three  years  in  the  seminary, 
and  so  make  sure  that,  whether  he  have  ten  talents 
or  one,  that  which  he  does  possess  is  not  hidden  in  a 
napkin,  but  ready  at  any  instant  for  the  service 
of  man. 

Vocation,  not  technical  knowledge,  should  be  the 
goal  of  our  seminaries.  They  need  not  less  scholar- 
ship, but  more  persistent  focussing  of  scholarship 
on  life.  Our  best  schools  of  engineering,  uniting 
devotion  to  science,  with  the  steady  application  of 
science  to  the  work  of  construction,  may  furnish 
many  a  useful  hint  as  to  the  training  of  those  whose 
higher  task  it  is  to  ''make  the  crooked  straight  and 
the  rough  places  plain." 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    247 

But  this  reinterpret  at  ion  of  function  and  read- 
justment of  effort  is  quite  as  necessary  on  the  part 
of  the  church  as  on  the  part  of  the  school,  if  the  two 
are  to  come  into  genuine  co6peration.  The  church 
must  develop  the  educational  ideal  to  a  far  greater 
extent  than  hitherto.  To  keep  the  church  in  sym- 
pathy with  student  life  we  must  not  only,  as  already 
suggested,  speak  in  the  vocabulary  of  the  present  day, 
but  must  adapt  the  church  more  fully  to  the  needs  of 
young  men  and  women.  We  must  indeed  comfort 
the  sorrowful,  bury  the  dead,  brighten  the  home  of 
the  aged,  relieve  the  poor;  but  we  must  not  become 
so  absorbed  in  running  the  ambulance  of  the  King's 
army  that  we  have  no  time  to  sound  the  trumpet 
and  lead  the  host  into  battle.  The  average  church 
is  adjusted  primarily,  and  perhaps  naturally,  to  fam- 
ily needs.  With  its  hallowing  of  birth  and  bridal, 
with  its  provision  of  the  long  pew,  seen  in  no  other 
assembly-room,  with  its  pastoral  attention  to  home- 
makers  rather  than  to  bread-winners,  the  church 
shows  that  it  considers  the  family  as  the  unit  of  its 
life.  But  meanwhile  in  our  civilization  the  family 
has  been  unhappily  broken  and  scattered.  No  lon- 
ger sitting  together  around  the  lamp  on  a  winter 
evening,  no  longer  rising  at  the  same  hour  in  the 
morning,  or  working  at  the  same  place  during  the 
day,  the  members  of  the  modem  family  find  their 
life  transformed  by  the  industrial  revolution.  The 
unity  of  the  family  fifty  years  ago  was  expressed  in 


248       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

the  fact  that  all  the  members  were  engaged  in  the 
same  regular  tasks  at  the  same  hour.  Waking 
at  the  sound  of  the  same  bell  or  the  call  of  the 
same  voice,  they  sat  together  at  table  three  times  a 
day,  worked  together  in  the  field  or  the  store  or  the 
home,  and  spent  the  evening  together  around  the 
fireside  or  at  some  neighbor's  house.  But  to-day 
family  unity  must  be  found  in  a  common  affection 
and  ideal,  surviving  the  utmost  diversity  of  program 
and  occupation.  If  all  the  members  meet  even  once 
a  day,  they  are  rarely  fortunate.  One  must  leave 
for  the  city  by  the  earliest  train,  another  is  travelling 
through  distant  states,  a  third  is  away  at  school, 
another  is  entertaining  some  friend  for  whom  the 
others  do  not  care,  and  the  former  unity  of  program 
and  routine  has  forever  vanished.  Family  prayers 
have  become  in  many  cases  a  physical  impossibility. 
The  family  pew,  where  once  father  and  mother  and 
children  sat  in  solemn  dignity,  is  now  rented  in  frag- 
ments and  occupied  by  persons  who  never  meet 
elsewhere.  Both  the  industrial  revolution  and  the 
educational  renascence  have  carried  the  young 
people  far  from  home,  thrown  them  on  their  own 
resources,  weakened  denominational  bonds,  broken 
up  the  customary  religious  observances,  and  forced 
a  new  problem  upon  the  church.  Many  American 
cities  contain  thousands  of  eager  students,  in  board- 
ing-schools, colleges  and  institutions  for  pro- 
fessional training.    Thus  the  most  promising  young 


RELATION  OP  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    249 

people  of  the  nation  are  away  from  home  during  the 
most  critical  years  of  their  life.  If  the  church  is  still 
following  the  old  program  presupposing  the  family 
circle  and  the  family  pew,  it  must  remain  uncom- 
prehending and  incomprehensible  to  the  young 
men  and  women  who  crowd  beneath  its  shadow. 
Young  men  do  not  need  to  be  treated  as  a  special 
class,  deserving  either  special  pity  as  prodigal  sons, 
or  special  respect  as  paragons  of  wisdom  and  virtue. 
They  need  a  virile  type  of  thinking,  an  upright,  down- 
right mode  of  address,  a  power  to  strip  off  the  husk 
and  get  at  the  kernel,  and  a  practical  type  of  religion 
which  insists  on  going  about  to  do  good.  They 
need  above  all  to  "learn  by  doing,"  to  be  set  at  work 
for  the  Kingdom  of  God.  We  shall  hold  them,  not 
by  what  we  do  for  them,  but  by  what  we  enable 
them  to  do.  They  covet  above  all  else  a  sphere  of 
action,  a  chance  to  do  things  that  seem  worth  while. 
If  they  do  not  go  to  church,  it  is  not  always  because 
of  antipathy  to  Christian  faith,  but  frequently  be- 
cause they  believe  nothing  very  important  is  being 
done  there.  They  will  not  attend  church  simply 
to  pay  compliments  to  religion.  They  will  not  be 
allured  by  effusive  greetings  in  the  vestibule,  or  dis- 
guised opera  in  the  choir,  or  processions  and  vest- 
ments and  genuflections.  They  will  be  allured  and 
held  and  educated  by  an  opportunity  to  engage  in 
great  Christian  enterprise  under  wise  and  effective 
leadership. 


250       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE    MINISTRY 

If  any  one  of  us  received  two  invitations  for  the 
same  afternoon,  one  to  an  afternoon  tea  and  the 
other  to  a  meeting  of  the  board  of  directors  of  some 
corporation  in  which  we  had  invested  half  our 
savings,  there  would  be  no  question  of  our  choice. 
We  should  say  of  the  first  occasion:  "That  is  mere 
formality,  exchange  of  greetings  and  compliments; 
no  one  will  suffer  from  my  absence."  We  should 
say  of  the  other  meeting :  "There  my  interests  and 
those  of  my  family  are  at  stake.  There  principles 
will  be  discussed,  policies  decided,  and  action  taken 
which  may  affect  all  our  future  —  at  all  hazards  I 
must  be  there."  The  young  people  of  our  time 
do  not  and  cannot  identify  religion  with  respectful 
attendance  at  a  formal  service  which  appears  to 
them  to  convey  no  new  knowledge  or  lead  to  no  new 
action.  If  they  can  be  led  to  think  of  worship  as  the 
true  and  essential  preparation  for  service,  and  to 
conceive  the  church  as  a  headquarters  of  Christian 
enterprise,  their  response  will  not  be  long  delayed. 

Many  churches  would  be  sorely  embarrassed  if 
twenty  young  men  should  apply  for  membership 
in  a  single  year.  We  should  hardly  know  what  to 
do  with  them.  If  a  young  man  is  fluent  in  speech, 
or  able  to  assist  financially,  we  can  at  once  place  him. 
There  is  the  Sunday-school  or  the  Young  People's 
Society  for  the  man  who  can  speak,  and  surely  there 
are  abundant  opportunities  for  the  man  who  can 
give.     But  the  man  whose  chief  talent  lies  in    a 


RELATION  OP  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    2$  I 

very  different  direction,  would  sometimes  find  better 
opening  for  definite  human  service  in  a  social  settle- 
ment or  a  Roman  Catholic  brotherhood  than  in  the 
average  Protestant  church.  If  we  could  use  more  \ 
men,  we  should  have  more  men  to  use.  The  church 
of  the  future  will  devise  means  to  bring  into  action 
the  vast  latent  powers  of  its  detached  young  men  and 
women  —  detached  because  not  yet  convinced  that 
the  church  is  willing  or  able  to  harness  their  energies 
into  helpful,  inspiring  service  to  their  generation. 

From  every  church  thus  in  sympathy  with  young 
life  there  will  constantly  go  forth  a  procession  of 
young  people  into  our  Christian  schools  and  colleges. 
Such  a  church  must  take  a  constantly  growing  inter- 
est in  education.  The  endowed  Christian  academy 
has  wrought  a  memorable  work  in  our  country,  a 
work  not  yet  completed  or  superseded.  If  our 
public  schools  cannot  give  religious  instruction 
and  social  watch-care,  there  will  always  be  needed 
for  some  pupils  well-equipped  private  schools  under 
the  fostering  care  of  the  church.  To  plan  and 
nourish  such  schools,  and  send  to  them  some  of  the 
choicest  of  its  young  people,  will  always  be  the  am- 
bition of  a  far-seeing  church.  It  is  most  significant 
that  three  of  the  foremost  evangelists  of  the  last 
generation  gave  the  closing  years  of  their  lives  to 
the  founding  and  developing  of  Christian  schools. 
Charles  G.  Finney  did  his  most  enduring  work  at 
Oberlin.    Charles  H.  Spurgeon,  as  he  grew  older, 


252       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

devoted  ever  increasing  time  and  labor  to  his  college 
for  the  training  of  ministers.  Dwight  L.  Moody's 
real  monument  is  not  in  the  great  auditoriums  that 
he  filled,  or  the  volumes  of  sermons  he  scattered  in 
every  civilized  land,  but  in  the  groups  of  buildings 
and  the  hundreds  of  students  gathered  in  the  Con- 
necticut Valley.  These  men,  gifted  to  an  extraor- 
dinary degree  with  power  of  personal  impact  and 
suasion,  came  to  see  that  their  message  to  the  world 
would  be  evanescent  unless  placed  upon  an  educa- 
tional basis,  and  embodied  in  some  enduring  school. 
Our  foreign  missionaries  have  slowly  but  surely 
reached  the  same  attitude.  The  great  missionary 
enterprise  began  simply  with  the  idea  of  individual 
rescue.  Millions  were  falling  daily  into  eternal  dark- 
ness, and  by  heroic  endeavor  a  few  souls  might  be 
plucked  from  the  general  destruction.  The  most 
the  church  could  hope  to  do  was  hurriedly  to  an- 
nounce the  good  tidings  by  itinerant  evangelism,  and 
thus  clear  its  skirts  of  responsibility  for  the  general 
doom.  Later  came  to  our  missionary  leaders  the 
idea  of  the  possible  evangelization  of  the  whole  world 
in  this  generation.  Then  came  the  transformed  and 
transforming  idea  of  actually  setting  up  the  King- 
dom of  God  in  the  regions  beyond,  of  embodying  its 
message  in  permanent  institutions,  and  building 
schools  whose  full  development  would  demand 
a  thousand  years.  In  these  schools,  on  the  Bos- 
phorus,  the  Ganges,  the  Yang-tse-Kiang,  the  Congo, 


RELATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  COLLEGE    253 

are  now  centred  the  chief  hopes  of  our  missionary 
leaders.  Through  such  schools  is  coming  about 
a  change  of  religious  climate,  by  which  individual 
allegiance  to  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  will  become 
natural  and  imperative.  In  foreign  missions,  at 
least,  church  and  college,  springing  out  of  the  same 
impulse,  founded  in  the  same  deep  faith,  are  co- 
operating for  the  same  great  end. 

But  the  chief  need  of  both  college  and  church, 
and  of  our  entire  civilization  as  well,  is  to  emphasize 
the  ideal  and  spiritual  elements  in  human  life.  The 
trend  of  the  colleges  toward  vocational  courses  of 
study,  for  which  strong  reasons  can  be  presented, 
and  the  trend  of  the  churches  toward  social  re- 
construction, for  which  equally  good  reasons  can 
be  given  —  both  make  it  clear  that  spiritual  motives 
and  aims  are  in  danger  of  being  overlaid  and 
obscured. 

We  have  become  almost  afraid  of  the  word 
"spiritual"  —  it  has  been  so  abused  and  perverted. 
As  the  great  word  charity  has  sunk  to  mean  merely 
the  tossing  of  a  dole  to  a  sturdy  beggar,  so  the  word 
spiritual  has  often  come  to  mean  the  use  of  a  certain 
phraseology,  the  exclusive  dwelling  on  certain  aspects 
of  truth,  or  the  adoption  of  a  sanctimonious  tone 
and  manner.  But  the  word  is  too  noble  in  mean- 
ing and  association  to  be  lightly  surrendered.  It 
must  be  recalled  to  its  original  and  lofty  use.  Spiritu- 
ality is  the  power  to  pass  beneath  forms  and  formulas 


254       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

and  materials,  and  perceive  the  spirit  which  ani- 
mates them  and  gives  them  significance.  It  is  the 
power  to  penetrate  behind  the  outward  appearance 
of  an  object,  an  event,  an  institution,  or  behind  the 
visible  world  itself,  and  apprehend  the  spirit  which 
gives  to  the  outer  symbol  all  its  validity  and  mean- 
ing. The  unspiritual  man  is  not  he  who  fails  to 
pronounce  certain  shibboleths  or  observe  certain 
conventions;  it  is  he  who  habitually  lives  in  the 
mere  world  of  appearances  and  materials.  But  he 
who  perceives  the  ideal  within  the  material,  the  spirit 
within  the  body,  the  eternal  presence  behind  the 
fickle  fleeting  world,  is  the  man  clothed  with  power 
of  spiritual  discernment  and  leadership. 

The  college  must  indeed  have  its  equipments 
and  endowments.  It  cannot  remain  *'an  old  log 
with  the  great  teacher  on  one  end  and  the  student 
on  the  other."  The  great  teacher  is  precisely  the 
one  that  will  not  remain  in  that  position,  or  narrow 
his  pupil  to  that  horizon.  The  college  must  have 
its  apparatus  for  modem  teaching,  or  remain  in- 
trospective and  provincial.  But  it  must  regard  as 
still  more  imperative  the  possession  of  men  of  insight 
into  moral  and  spiritual  values.  It  must  realize 
that  facts  are  worthless  until  seen  in  their  relations, 
and  events  meaningless  apart  from  standards  of 
value,  and  all  whetting  of  the  mental  powers  is 
futile  unless  the  spirit  of  man  is  permeated  with 
just  and  vivid  ideas  of  what  is  truly  worth  while. 


liELATION  OF  CHURCH   AND  COLLEGE         2$$ 

The  church  needs,  as  we  have  urged,  new  ma- 
terials and  methods.  It  may  have  its  kinder- 
gartens and  sewing-classes  and  vacation  schools 
and  guild  houses,  and  the  clubs  whose  name  is 
legion.  It  must  have,  as  we  have  shown,  vital 
relation  to  the  institutions  about  it,  to  the  great 
movements  for  human  uplift,  for  sweetening  the 
life  of  city  and  country.  But  the  amount  of  this 
work  it  can  undertake  depends  absolutely  on  the  1 
clearness  of  its  spiritual  perception  and  the  depth  of  / 
its  own  inner  life.  The  moment  it  turns  from  the 
vision  of  God,  and  begins  merely  to  serve  tables, 
that  moment  it  is  crippled.  If  the  church  —  the 
only  institution  in  our  civilization  which  professes 
a  fundamentally  spiritual  aim  —  begins  to  surrender 
its  supreme  allegiance  to  the  Christian  motive,  and 
consents  to  be  merely  a  purveyor  of  second-hand 
clothing  and  fresh-air  funds  and  charity  tickets,  it 
will  become  the  heaviest  disappointment  of  history, 
mocking  the  deeper  needs  of  men  in  its  short-sighted 
attempt  to  supply  them  with  three  meals  a  day. 
We  need  more,  not  less,  of  humanitarian  effort; 
more  equipment  for  healing  the  sick  and  clothing 
the  naked.  But  we  can  preserve  this  work  from 
superficiality  and  futility  only  as  we  bring  it  into 
relation  to  the  Kingdom  of  God.  To  give  a  cup  of 
cold  water  "in  his  name"  is  not  merely  to  quench 
a  thirst  that  will  soon  return,  but  to  do  a  single 
trivial  deed  as  part  of  the  universal  moral  order, 


256       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE    MINISTRY 

and  to  link  that  thirsty  man  with  powers  that  spring 
up  into  everiasting  life. 

The  need  of  our  country  is  not  to  lift  marble  to 
the  fortieth  story  of  some  new  office  building, 
but  to  lift  the  level  of  character;  not  to  whiten  the 
seas  with  the  sails  of  our  commerce,  but  to  develop 
those  simple  fidelities  and  homely  virtues  which  are 
the  cheap  defence  of  nations.  When  Tennyson 
wrote  *'The  Crossing  of  the  Bar,"  he  did  more  for 
civilization  than  if  he  had  built  any  ocean-liner  or 
man-of-war.  Thomas  Stevenson  did  much  for 
England  when  he  built  the  lighthouses  which  send 
their  radiance  each  night  over  the  tossing  waters 
of  the  Channel.  But  we  owe  far  more  to  his  son, 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  because  he  taught  us  how 
to  kindle  a  light  within,  how  to  keep  the  soul  serene 
and  steadfast  in  the  face  of  pain  and  death.  When 
Millet  seized  his  brush  and  painted  the  "Angelus'' 
on  the  bit  of  canvas  that  cost  him  three  francs,  he 
did  more  for  labor  and  the  laboring  man  than  if  he 
had  seized  a  spade  and  worked  for  fifty  years  in 
the  fields  of  France.  Not  the  men  who  add  to  our 
quantity  of  materials,  but  the  men  who  deepen  the 
quality  of  our  living,  are  the  real  benefactors  and 
educators  of  the  world.  In  such  high  endeavor  our 
antagonisms  vanish,  because  we  become  workers 
together  with  God. 


VIII 


THE   EDUCATION  OF  THE  MINISTER  BY  HIS 
TASK 

"One,  dared  to  die;  in  a  swift  moment's  space 
F'il  in  war's  forefront,  laughter  on  his  face, 
bronze  tells  his  fame  in  many  a  market  place. 

*  Another  dared  to  live;  the  long  years  through 
Felt  his  slow  heart's  blood  ooze  like  crimson  dew 
For  duty's  sake,  and  smiled.    And  no  one  knew." 


LECTURE  VIII 

THE  EDUCATION   OF   THE   MINISTER   BY  HIS 
TASK 

Every  minister  is  on  the  day  of  his  ordination 
simply  an  educated  possibility.  He  is  not  a  finished 
instrument,  but  an  emerging  power.  He  stands  like 
Milton's  '*  tawny  lion,  pawing  to  get  free  his  hinder 
parts."  One  half  his  nature  is  often  still  immersed 
in  the  aims  and  ideals  of  the  library  and  the  lecture 
room,  the  other  is  reaching  out  to  the  world  of  men 
and  of  action.  His  creed  is  half  formed,  his  methods 
tentative,  his  abilities  unknown,  his  success  prob- 
lematical. He  has  indeed  a  great  overmastering 
conviction,  but  which  way  that  conviction  will 
drive  him,  and  what  sort  of  instrument  will  result, 
no  man  or  church  can  tell.  **  Ye  are  branches,"  said 
Christ  to  the  original  band  of  Christian  preachers. 
The  quality  of  the  branch  is  indeed  determined; 
but  its  rate  of  growth,  the  direction  it  will  take, 
the  nourishment  it  will  find,  the  value  of  the  fruit 
it  will  bear  —  all  this  is  fascinatingly  imcertain. 
The  minister  is  at  ordination  usually  plunged  into 
a  wholly  new  environment,  and  the  reaction  of  that 
environment  on  his  character  and  ideals  is  profound 

259 


260       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

and  constant.  If  he  is  a  man  of  tenacity  and  self- 
assertion,  he  may  change  but  slowly.  If  he  is,  as 
religious  men  usually  are,  sensitive  to  all  the  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  forces  that  play  about  him, 
then  in  some  measure  his 

"nature  is  subdued 
To  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand." 

What  is  the  influence,  for  good  and  for  evil,  of  the 
minister's  task  on  his  character? 

I.  Every  congregation  makes  a  silent  and  con- 
tinuous demand  for  a  certain  type  of  preaching. 
There  are,  let  us  say,  a  thousand  men  and  women  in 
the  congregation,  and  only  one  in  the  pulpit,  and 
the  pull  on  the  preacher  often  varies  as  the  mass. 
The  preacher  ordinarily  does  not  create  his  position, 
he  is  called  to  fill  it.  The  office  is  many  centuries 
older,  and  may  be  far  stronger,  than  the  man.  He 
finds  before  him  and  around  him  a  people,  already 
trained  in  certain  conceptions  of  truth,  certain 
ideals  of  life,  demanding  a  certain  kind  of  mental 
and  moral  pabulum,  and  the  pull  of  the  audience 
on  the  preacher  is  as  unremitting  as  the  attraction 
of  the  moon  upon  the  tides.  The  editor  of  the  news- 
paper is  thus  conscious  of  his  readers  in  every  line 
he  writes.  The  novelist  cannot  draw  a  single  char- 
acter without  thinking  of  the  demand  of  the  unseen 
public.  But  the  preacher  is  under  far  more  power- 
ful attraction.    He  is  face  to  face  with  the  men  he 


EDUCATION   OF   THE   MINISTER    BY   HIS   TASK       26 1 

must  uplift  and  inspire.  He  sees  as  he  speaks  the 
gleam  of  glad  resix)nse,  the  look  of  bewilderment, 
the  frown  of  opposition.  He  knows  that  a  single 
utterance  may  cause  him  to  be  labelled  with  some 
unhappy  designation  or  may  give  rise  to  long  mis- 
construction and  controversy.  Can  he  keep  his 
rudder  true?  Can  he  persist  in  giving  his  people 
what  they  need  rather  than  what  they  want  ?  Instead 
of  tamely  offering  a  supply  to  meet  a  popular  de- 
mand, can  he  create  a  new  demand  and  stimulate 
a  di\iner  hunger  among  his  people  ? 

Here  is  the  secret  of  the  deterioration  of  the  popu- 
lar orator.  Seldom  does  any  man  address  many  hun- 
dreds of  his  fellow-men  at  once  for  a  long  series 
of  years  without  some  inner  compromise.  He  sees 
before  him  a  vast  assembly  to  be  roused,  stimulated, 
impressed.  He  strikes  a  certain  string,  it  vibrates 
instantly.  He  strikes  it  again  and  again,  not  because 
that  particular  note  is  the  one  needed,  but  because 
in  that  direction  he  is  sure  of  response.  He  descends 
in  soul  to  meet  the  impatient  crowd.  He  finds  that 
an  anecdote  holds  the  audience  in  rapt  attention, 
and  he  enlarges  his  stock  of  anecdotes.  He  dis- 
covers that  reference  to  current  topics  rouses 
the  most  sonmolent  hearers  into  eager  listening, 
and  he  invents  a  "prelude"  to  the  sermon.  He 
finds  that  pathos  reaches  the  will  without  the  neces- 
sity of  convincing  the  reason,  and  he  falls  into  the 
pathetic  strain.    He  learns  that  an  epigrammatic 


262       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

and  pungent  style  will  produce  startling  effects, 
and  straightway  he  bristles  with  sentences  like 
barbed  arrows.  He  gradually  becomes  acquainted 
with  the  psychology  of  the  great  assembly,  as  a  lion- 
tamer  learns  the  moods  of  the  huge  creature  he 
must  master  or  be  mastered  by.  The  popular  plat- 
form lecturer  is  tempted  now  to  humor  and  flatter 
his  audience,  now  to  startle  and  dazzle  it.  By  all 
possible  devices  he  must  hold  together  the  assembly 
whose  dwindling  would  be  his  disgrace.  If  they 
want  patriotic  fervor  and  pyrotechnics,  why  should 
they  not  have  them  ?  If  they  want  social  or  political 
orthodoxy  and  repetition  of  sounding  formulas  — 
after  all,  the  speaker  is  there  to  meet  the  public 
demand.  There  are  no  more  subtle  or  powerful 
temptations  in  the  modem  world  than  those  which 
beset  the  oratorical  temperament  face  to  face  with 
the  swift  judgments  and  imperative  demands  of 
a  great  popular  audience.  Let  each  one  of  us  look 
about  him  and  see  that  the  greatest  tragedies  of 
the  pulpit  are  not  in  the  case  of  men  who  have  lost 
their  places,  but  the  men  who  have  kept  them  by 
descending  in  spirit. 

The  field  in  which  a  young  minister  first  settles 
at  once  begins  to  shape  him,  while  he  attempts  to 
shape  it.  To  select  a  particular  field  because  of  the 
opportunities  it  affords  for  personal  growth  is  indeed 
a  small  and  unheroic  proceeding.  To  go  to  a  certain 
parish  because  there  one  will  find  leisure,  or  books, 


EDUCATION   OF  THE   MINISTER   BY   HIS  TASK      263 

or  intellectual  stimulus,  is  to  preach  in  order  to  be 
ministered  unto,  not  to  minister.  The  best  place 
for  the  preacher  is  the  place  where  he  is  most  needed 
—  no  other  general  prescription  can  be  given.  The 
place  for  the  leaven  is  in  the  inert  mass  of  meal; 
the  place  for  the  light  is  where  the  darkness  is  most 
dense;  the  place  for  the  religious  leader  is  where 
religion  is  rarest  and  most  profoundly  needed. 
Who  shall  say  whether  that  place  be  on  Fifth 
Avenue,  or  in  the  New  England  country  town,  or 
under  the  walls  of  Pekin?  There  are  timid  souls 
in  the  ministry  as  everywhere  else,  who  shrink  from 
any  genuine  intellectual  and  spiritual  adventure. 
They  settle  down  where  labor  seems  easiest  and 
environment  most  responsive.  And  they  have  their 
reward  —  they  grow  more  timid  and  anaemic  as 
the  eventless  and  insipid  years  pass.  The  only 
negative  counsel  one  can  give  a  young  man  is  never 
to  take  a  church  that  is  already  on  the  crest  of  great 
success;  for  then  the  only  thing  one  can  do  is  to 
hold  it  there,  and  that  is  small  satisfaction  to  an 
aspiring  spirit.  The  real  joy  of  living  is  found  in 
laying  hold  of  an  enterprise  that  is  struggling, 
surrounded  by  difficulties,  but  obviously  needed, 
and  then  lifting  it  slowly,  steadily,  out  of  its  problems 
and  obstacles  into  strength  and  commanding  posi- 
tion. To  pour  light  into  darkness,  power  into  weak- 
ness, and  the  life  of  God  into  the  lives  of  men, 
is  the  minister's  supreme  happiness,  and  the  place 


264       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

where  such  work  is  most  clearly  needed  is  the  place 
that  makes  clearest  and  most  persistent  call. 

But  whatever  the  field,  its  silent  reaction  on  the 
worker  at  once  begins.  In  a  great  city  he  feels 
the  constant  demand  for  administrative  ability. 
He  must  each  day  organize,  harmonize,  correlate 
discordant  forces,  and  direct  them  to  the  achieve- 
ment of  some  end.  In  working  among  the  poverty- 
stricken  tenements  he  experiences  the  suffering  due 
to  industrial  maladjustments,  and  comes  to  insist 
more  and  more  on  the  social  aspects  of  Christianity. 
If  he  is  addressing  each  Sunday  an  assembly  of 
the  prosperous  and  successful  and  complacent,  he 
is  steadily  drawn  to  a  roseate  view  of  life  and  a 
general  contentment  with  the  economic  status  quo. 
Fight  as  he  will  against  it,  his  church  becomes  his 
training-school.  The  congregation  steadily  draw- 
ing their  preacher  toward  a  certain  ideal  may  create 
a  definite  ministerial  type.  The  difference  in  de- 
nominational types  is  well  known.  An  entire 
denomination,  surrounding  a  minister  with  certain 
demands  for  a  quarter  century,  becomes  to  many 
men  an  irresistible  power.  It  would  be  difficult 
to  imagine  a  John  Henry  Newman  growing  up  in 
the  Methodist  church,  or  a  Chaplain  McCabe  in 
the  Anglican  communion.  The  difference  between 
the  contemporaneous  sermons  of  Canon  Liddon 
and  those  of  Joseph  Parker  was  due  not  simply  to 
doctrinal    tenets    or    distinctions    of    temperament, 


EDUCATION   OF   THE    MINISTER    BY    HIS   TASK       265 

but  to  the  subjection  of  both  for  thirty  years  to 
the  almost  antipodal  demands  of  two  audiences, 
representing  distinct  historic  evolutions  and  distinct 
ideals  of  the  prophetic  message. 

Happy  is  the  minister  who  has  in  the  pews  before 
him  some  man  or  group  of  men  who  will  steadily 
hold  him  to  his  best  1  A  few  thoughtful,  spiritual 
listeners  may  achieve  the  higher  education  of  their 
minister.  In  their  presence  he  is  never  tempted 
to  stoop.  In  their  appreciation  and  gratitude  he 
finds  support  on  the  darkest  day.  The  power  of 
the  laity  to  create  the  ministry  is  seldom  recognized. 
Especially  is  this  evident  when,  as  so  often  happens, 
the  officers  of  the  church  are  mature,  strong  men, 
and  the  pastor  is  young  and  inexperienced.  Such 
men  can  often  make  or  break  the  young  minister's 
career.  They  can  encourage  him  in  the  flamboyant 
and  the  sensational,  or  they  can  by  silent  or  spoken 
sympathy  summon  him  to  educational  and  spiritual 
methods  which  shall  make  his  ministry  the  joy  and 
crown  of  the  church. 

2.  The  task  of  the  minister  is  also  educative  be- 
cause of  the  insight  it  gives  him  into  human  nature 
—  the  motives  which  actuate  men,  the  causes  of 
joy  and  grief,  the  reasons  for  success  and  failure, 
the  passions  and  regrets  and  hungers  which  lie 
in  the  depths  of  every  human  heart.  The  young 
minister  usually  knows  books  better  than  he  knows 
men.    But  books  are,  in  Stevenson's  phrase,   "a 


266       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE    MINISTRY 

mighty  bloodless  substitute  for  life."  After  spending 
years  in  the  study  of  literature  and  theology,  it  is 
a  startling  and  wholesome  experience  to  be  flung 
out  into  a  parish,  and  be  compelled  to  face  those 
primitive  human  experiences  which  are  the  source 
of  all  the  theologies  of  the  ages.  The  average 
seminary  gives  a  man  so  little  of  that  clinical  ex- 
perience which  is  the  special  aim  of  the  medical 
school,  that  the  young  minister  may  feel  far  more 
at  home  in  an  alcove  of  the  library  than  in  a  group 
of  men  assembled  to  discuss  some  public  wrong, 
or  in  a  company  of  friends  gathered  to  comfort  a 
bereaved  household.  It  is  his  intellectual  salvation 
to  be  plucked  out  of  a  bookish  life,  and  thrust  into 
the  tumultuous  and  complicated  strivings  of  a 
neighborhood  where  the  noblest  and  meanest  pas- 
sions of  humanity  are  grappling  for  mastery.  Amid 
such  lurid  and  pathetic  realities  how  pale  and 
shadowy  seem  the  class-room  discussions!  What 
a  flood  of  light  is  poured  on  the  old  problems  by 
the  new  emergency !  Actually  to  face  the  drunkard 
and  libertine  and  pull  him  out  of  the  miry  clay, 
actually  to  grapple  with  the  greed  of  gain  as  it 
throttles  leading  members  of  the  church,  actually 
to  meet  the  sneers  of  the  scornful  with  patience  and 
the  objection  of  the  sceptic  with  candor,  to  offer 
some  genuine  consolation  to  the  man  whose  last 
hope  is  under  the  sod,  and  to  rejoice  with  them  that 
do  rejoice,  —  which  is  often  harder  than  to  weep 


EDUCATION  OP  THE   MINISTER  BY   HIS  TASK      267 

with  them  that  weep,  —  this  is  to  gain  such  insight 
into  human  souls  as  no  poetry  or  fiction  or  uni- 
versity study  can  give,  and  to  undergo  inevitable 
revisions  in  one's  formulation  of  truth. 

There  is  no  relation  in  society  quite  so  intimate 
as  that  of  pastor  and  congregation.  The  nearest 
thing  to  it  is  the  relation  of  the  physician  and  his 
patients,  but  this  often  stops  with  physical  relief  for 
physical  ill.  There  is  no  kind  of  mental  or  moral 
burden  or  grief  or  perplexity  which  is  not  brought 
to  the  true  pastor.  He  is  "acquainted  with  grief" 
—  a  touching  phrase,  as  if  human  sorrow  were  so 
various  and  intricate  that  only  through  laborious 
process  could  one  become  familiar  with  its  inner- 
most recesses.  He  is  to  be  acquainted  with  joy,  — 
its  abandon,  its  excesses,  its  reactions,  its  wholesome 
enlargement  of  heart  and  life.  He  is  to  go  with  his 
people  through  all  the  varied  territory  that  Bunyan 
has  pictured,  —  Doubting  Castle,  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow,  Vanity  Fair,  the  Enchanted  Ground,  the 
Interpreter's  House,  and  Beulah  Land.  And  all 
this  contact  with  innermost  human  experience 
should  give  him  a  psychological  insight  such  as  can 
be  gained  in  no  other  way.  The  pride  of  technical 
scholarship  vanishes  as  he  comes  to  realize  that 
some  men  whose  theology  is  hopelessly  crooked 
know  God  much  better  than  he  does.  The  dil- 
letantism  bred  by  years  of  academic  seclusion 
evaporates  in  the  presence  of  the  dire  realities  of 
human  need. 


268       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

I  have  seen  a  man  of  finest  intellectual  ability, 
aristocratic  bearing,  and  sensitive  disposition,  after 
spending  years  in  the  companionship  of  Matthew 
Arnold  and  Amiel,  suddenly  set  down  in  a  miners' 
camp  in  California  and  compelled  to  address  the 
inhabitants  twice  a  week  on  the  things  of  the  spirit. 
At  first  his  revulsion  was  terrible.  But  after  six 
months  he  learned  that  the  rough  miner  had  found 
some  things  hidden  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and 
the  preacher  achieved  a  knowledge  of  humanity, 
apart  from  all  accidents  of  birth  and  occupation, 
which  changed  his  entire  career.  If  every  candidate 
for  the  ministry  could  pass  through  some  such  ele- 
mental and  soul-searching  experience,  our  preach- 
ing would  have  a  realism  such  as  no  hours  in  any 
library  can  give. 

3.  Side  by  side  with  these  opportunities  lie  certain 
dangers.  Among  these  not  the  least  is  the  abuse  of 
the  ''homiletic  habit,"  i.e,  a  habit  of  viewing  all 
truth  with  reference  to  its  public  presentation  in 
sermonic  form,  and  all  objects  and  events  as  sug- 
gestive of  religious  analogies.  Such  a  habit  is 
indeed  the  mark  of  an  alert  mind  and  a  vivid  imagi- 
nation. Just  as  the  mountain  suggests  to  the  botanist 
endless  excursions  through  the  fields,  to  the  engineer 
some  new  triumph  in  the  construction  of  tunnels, 
and  to  the  artist  some  new  canvas  for  the  approach- 
ing exhibition,  so  it  suggests  to  the  preacher  truths 
which  will  soon  emerge  in  the  pulpit.    As  he  walks 


EDUCATION   OF  THE   MINISTER   BY   HIS  TASK      269 

abroad  through  the  summer  sunshine,  or  the  winter's 
whirling  snow,  or  the  clinging  mists  of  autumn, 
as  he  visits  battlefields  and  monuments,  he  is  con- 
stantly storing  up  images  that  will  some  day  "flash 
upon  that  inward  eye  which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude." 
He  cannot  go  to  the  village  post-office  without 
finding  metaphors  and  analogies  in  the  thistles  of 
the  pasture  or  in  the  wayside  pool.  He  cannot 
view  a  military  pageant  without  hearing  invisible 
trumpets  playing,  "Onward,  Christian  soldiers,** 
or  go  a-fishing  without  hearing  a  far-away  voice 
cry,  "Henceforth  thou  shalt  catch  men.**  The 
life  of  Tennyson,  by  his  son  Lionel,  showed  us  how 
constantly  the  great  poet  jotted  down  in  his  note- 
book descriptions  of  scenery  which  were  afterward 
to  appear  as  glowing  images  in  "The  Idylls  of  the 
King**  or  "In  Memoriam.**  We  can  easily  under- 
stand how  such  a  man  could  stoop  enraptured  over 
violets  in  the  grass,  crying  out,  "What  an  imagina- 
tion God  has!'* 

But  this  habit,  so  useful,  so  fruitful,  must  be 
held  in  stem  subjection,  or  it  may  become  a  source 
both  of  illusion  and  of  tyranny.  Analogy  is  not 
always  argument,  and  may  easily  mislead  us.  It 
was  generally  felt  that  Henry  Drummond,  in  his 
"Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World,"  while  giving 
us  much  keen  insight  and  helpful  suggestion,  had 
yet  pressed  analogy  into  identity  and  overshot  his 
mark.    The  ancient  commentator  who  found  in 


2/0       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

the  four  points  of  the  compass  the  reason  for  the 
existence  of  the  four  gospels  was  the  father  of  a 
numerous  offspring.  Such  writers  find  marvellous 
truths  in  every  curtain  of  the  ancient  tabernacle, 
and  discern  more  gospel  in  Leviticus  than  in  the 
writings  of  St.  John.  A  poetic  fancy  is  a  valuable 
gift  only  when  held  in  leash  by  a  sound  judgment. 
But  the  chief  danger  of  the  homiletic  habit  is  that 
it  may  become  so  tyrannical  as  to  reduce  all  truth 
to  mere  grist  for  one's  private  sermon  mill.  It  may 
hinder  a  man  from  dispassionate  and  candid  study 
of  great  ranges  of  Christian  thought,  and  induce 
him  to  regard  the  universe  as  mere  material  for  next 
Sunday's  homily.  This  is  as  if  one  should  imagine 
that  the  entire  use  of  the  Hudson  or  the  Mississippi 
were  to  fill  a  private  drinking-cup.  To  study  Israel's 
history,  or  Augustine's  Confessions,  or  the  Great 
Awakening  of  New  England,  merely  in  order  to 
extract  some  homiletic  nuggets  for  next  Sunday,  is 
to  miss  entirely  the  meaning  of  what  we  study,  and 
to  be  hampered  by  a  fatal  self-consciousness  bom 
of  a  utilitarian  end.  Let  a  man  rather  plunge  into 
the  study  of  some  great  movement  or  some  stirring 
truth  as  the  swimmer  flings  himself  with  abandon 
into  the  sea.  When  he  comes  out  dripping  and 
glowing,  he  may  bring  nothing  tangible  with  him, 
but  he  has  gained  a  vigor  and  zest  in  Hving  which 
will  transform  every  task  he  essays.  The  man  who 
has  studied,  for  example,  for  six  months  the  swift 


EDUCATION   OF  THF   MINISTER   BV   HIS  TASK      2/1 

spreading  of  Christianity  in  the  Roman  empire, 
not  with  a  view  to  edifying  incidents  which  may 
be  set  before  his  congregation,  but  simply  with  a 
view  to  mastering  the  truth,  will  rise  before  an 
assembly  clothed  with  genuine  and  obvious  power. 
He  speaks  with  authority,  and  not  as  do  the  scribes 
or  the  rhetoricians.  He  may  possess  an  imagination 
that  can  clothe  any  truth  in  brilliant  hues;  but  in 
all  his  intellectual  product  he  rigidly  subordinates 
decoration  to  construction. 

Thus  also  the  preacher  is  saved  from  continually 
applying  truth  to  his  neighbors,  his  community, 
his  state,  his  nation,  and  forgetting  to  preach  to 
himself.  Wisdom  was  in  Bengel's  saying,  "Apply 
thyself  to  the  text,  and  then  apply  the  text  to  thy- 
self." It  is  dangerous  for  a  man  to  view  the  entire 
Christian  faith  simply  as  a  means  of  exhorting  and 
improving  other  men. 

Many  a  truth  is  spoken  in  jest,  as  in  Mark  Twain's 
description  of  his  ascent  of  Mont  Blanc  by  proxy. 
At  the  hotel  in  Chamounix  he  was  urged  by  his 
friends  to  attempt  the  ascent  of  the  snow-crowned 
mountain.  He  shrank,  however,  from  the  under- 
taking, and  resorted  to  the  telescope  erected  in  the 
courtyard  of  the  hotel.  Looking  through  the  glass 
he  perceived  a  party  of  travellers  nearing  the  summit, 
and  sat  there  through  the  whole  morning,  intensely 
interested  in  their  progress.  When  they  slipped 
backward  on  the  icy  path,  he  held  his  breath  in 


2/2       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL   IN   THE   MINISTRY 

anxiety  and  fear.  When  they  climbed  securely 
upward,  he  clapped  his  hands  in  sympathetic  joy. 
When  they  rested  for  a  few  moments  from  the  ar- 
duous toil,  a  sigh  of  relief  escaped  him.  Thus,  he 
affirms,  he  obtained  all  the  exhilaration  and  benefit 
of  the  great  ascent  without  himself  stirring  from  the 
litde  courtyard. 

A  man  may  so  fervently  urge  others  to  benevolence 
that  he  imagines  himself  to  have  been  benevolent. 
He  may  so  admirably  depict  the  virtue  of  forgiveness 
that  he  actually  supposes  himself  to  have  forgiven 
his  enemies.  He  may  so  vividly  set  forth  the  beauty 
of  self-sacrifice  and  so  sincerely  feel  that  beauty 
that  he  comes  to  think  of  himself  as  living  a  sacri- 
ficial life.  We  cannot  doubt  that  Goethe  was  alive 
to  the  beauty  of  innocence  when  he  painted  Mar- 
guerite, or  that  Byron  as  he  sang  the  "Hebrew 
Melodies"  felt  the  majesty  of  the  Hebraic  conscience. 
But  the  minister  is  more  than  poet  or  painter.  He 
is  the  word  made  flesh.  He  is  not  only  to  ''allure 
to  brighter  worlds,"  but  to  "lead  the  way."  The 
divorce  between  vision  and  life  which  the  world 
tolerates,  and  sometimes  welcomes,  in  the  artist, 
it  will  not  tolerate  in  the  prophet.  Let  the  prophet's 
imagination  blossom  as  it  will  in  all  manner  of 
figures  and  parables;  but  let  him  sincerely  try  to 
know  and  live  the  truth  before  he  attempts  to  adorn 
it  or  apply  it  to  his  brother  man. 

4.  Another  distinct  element  in  the  education  of 


EDUCATION    OF    THE    MINISTER    BY    HIS   TASK      2/3 

the  minister  is  found  in  the  fact  that  women  con- 
stitute SO  large  a  majority  of  the  membership  of  our 
churches.  When  we  consider  the  vast  amount  of 
time  spent  in  pastoral  visitation  upon  women  and 
children,  when  we  remember  the  numerical  prepon- 
derance of  women  in  the  average  congregation,  it 
may  be  said  that  the  greater  part  of  the  minister*s 
time  and  strength  is  expended  in  the  direction,  encour- 
agement, and  consolation  of  Christian  womanhood. 
This  situation  cannot  fail  to  react  on  the  minister*s 
attitude  toward  life,  both  for  good  and  for  evil. 

All  the  greatest  seers  of  the  world,  whether  in  liter- 
ature, art,  or  religion,  have  included  in  their  native 
endowment  some  distinctly  feminine  qualities.  The 
virility  and  initiative  and  fearlessness  and  crude 
energy  which  we  call  distinctively  masculine  qualities 
are  not  enough  to  qualify  a  man  for  spiritual  per- 
ception and  interpretation.  A  certain  delicacy  of 
temper,  a  susceptibility  to  changes  of  psychological 
climate,  a  swift  responsiveness  to  the  moods  of  others, 
a  brooding  meditation  like  that  of  Mary,  who  **kept 
all  these  things  and  pondered  them  in  her  heart"  — 
these  are  elements  in  the  equipment  of  the  true 
preacher.  A  church  without  the  insight  and  sym- 
pathy of  womanhood  might  indeed  be  a  victorious 
army,  but  it  would  be  fighting  on  the  wrong  side  half 
the  time.  Indeed,  in  these  days  of  the  industrial 
opportunity  and  economic  independence  of  women 
we  may  yet  have  to  struggle  to  retain  the  distinctly 


2/4       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

feminine  elements  in  life,  lest  all  the  finer  instincts 
and  perceptions  of  womanhood  should  be  swallowed 
up  in  the  desire  for  an  equality  which  is  simply  a 
monotonous  and  meaningless  identity.  Forever  will 
it  be  true  that  *'the  eternal-womanly  leads  us  on." 
Phillips  Brooks's  biographer  has  not  failed  to  note 
in  that  rare  spirit  a  certain  feminine  receptivity 
which  was  a  part  of  the  universality  of  his  nature.* 

Nevertheless  if  constant  sympathy  with  the  ideals 
and  attitudes  of  womanhood  should  put  preachers 
definitely  out  of  touch  with  the  masculine  ideals  of 
their  generation,  the  Christian  religion  would  suffer 
irretrievable  loss.  Entering  recently  a  metropolitan 
church  I  heard  the  venerable  pastor  —  a  most  at- 
tractive figure  crowned  with  snowy  hair  —  announce 
his  subject,  "The  message  of  the  gospel  to  tired 
women,"  and  I  counted  just  five  men  in  that  after- 
noon assembly.  It  would  be  unfortunate  if  the  gos- 
pel should  come  to  be  regarded  as  chiefly  adapted 
to  tired  women.  There  are  clergymen  who  are 
quite  at  home  in  the  parish  visitation  of  families, 
but  are  hopelessly  inept  and  awkward  in  any  com- 
pany of  business  men.  Unfamiliar  with  outdoor 
sports,  they  dread  to  meet  a  group  of  young  men 
discussing  athletics,  and  sedulously  avoid  the  play- 
grounds of  the  people.  Unaccustomed  to  com- 
mercial life,  they  seldom  enter  a  business  office,  and 
if  compelled  to  do  so  are  obviously  embarrassed. 

»  Life  of  Phillips  Brooks,  by  A.  V.  V.  Allen,  Vol.  II,  p.  299. 


EDUCATION   OF   Tin-    MINISTER   BY   HIS  TASK      2J$ 

The  rough  contacts  ot  the  lawyer's  life,  the  rude 
blows  of  political  controversy,  the  open  enmities  of 
industrial  competition  —  from  all  these  things  the 
minister  is  habitually  sheltered.  And  like  all  shel- 
tered organisms  he  may  grow  tender  and  colorless. 
It  is  his  misfortune  to  see  his  congregation  usually 
in  their  best  clothing,  to  have  men  speak  softly  in 
his  presence  and  avoid  the  themes  which  might 
startle  him.  Hence  he  may  acquire  a  superficial 
view  of  the  social  order,  and  fail  to  grapple,  man- 
fashion,  with  the  virile  personalities  and  brutal 
forces  and  grim  realities  which  lie  at  the  heart  of 
the  world  around  him.  If  he  would  be  saved  from 
that  feminization  which  frequently  overtakes  the 
poet,  the  musician  and  the  artist,  he  must  resolutely 
decline  to  spend  his  best  vitality  in  calling  at  places 
where  no  men  are  to  be  found,  and  must  resolutely 
seek  the  friendship  of  those  whom  Whitman  calls 
"powerful  uneducated  persons."  He  must  seek  the 
companionship  of  forceful  men  in  their  struggles, 
must  meet  them  in  their  rivalries,  in  their  recreations, 
their  politics,  and  learn  the  strength  of  rude  passion 
and  the  power  of  determined  will  which  lie  behind  the 
achievements  of  the  modem  world.  He  who  would 
minister  to  men  must  himself  be  a  man  of  stout  heart, 
able  to  endure  hardness  as  a  good  soldier,  unpam- 
pered  and  unterrified. 

5.    But  nothing  is  more  obvious  in  the  minister's 
environment  than  the  powerful  stimulus  to  intellect- 


276       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

ual  and  moral  growth  which  comes  from  ministering 
continuously  to  the  same  congregation  for  a  series 
of  years.  In  this  respect  the  minister  differs  sharply 
from  the  school-teacher.  The  latter  teaches  a  pro- 
cession of  pupils  constantly  passing  through  his 
schoolroom.  The  minister  joins  the  procession  and 
marches  with  it.  In  the  schoolroom  the  pupils  an- 
nually change,  and  the  teacher,  going  over  the  same 
lessons  year  after  year,  is  in  danger  of  stagnating  and 
fossilizing.  In  the  normal  church  the  congregation 
changes  but  slowly,  the  same  men  may  sit  in  the  pews 
ten  or  twenty  or  thirty  years,  and  the  minister  must 
keep  in  advance  of  the  congregation  intellectually 
and  religiously,  or  leave  his  pulpit  altogether.  He 
must  continually  surpass  himself  or  retire.  If  a 
man  desires  to  make  the  most  of  his  own  powers,  there 
are  few  positions  in  life  that  so  imperiously  demand 
constant  growth  as  the  pastorate  of  the  same  flock 
for  ten  or  twelve  years.  The  itinerant  minister  is  re- 
lieved of  this  superb  necessity.  When  his  little 
stock  of  early  sermons  —  the  tin  dipper  which  he 
filled  in  the  seminary  —  is  exhausted,  he  simply 
moves  on  to  another  field.  When  difficulties  in- 
crease and  clouds  gather  round  his  path,  he  quietly 
retreats.  The  travelling  evangelist  is  under  the 
strongest  possible  inducements  to  subside  into 
arrested  development.  Changing  the  audience  at 
the  end  of  every  three  weeks,  there  appears  to  be  no 
cogent  reason  why  he  himself  should  change  at  all. 


EDUCATION  OP  THE   MINISTER   BY  HIS  TASK      2/7 

Using  the  same  themes,  appeals,  persuasions,  year 
after  year,  it  is  a  marvel  when  he  occasionally  escapes 
mechanical  routine  and  intellectual  atrophy. 

But  the  minister  who  receives  a  boy  into  the  church 
and  then  must  guide  and  instruct  and  strengthen 
that  human  being  through  adolescence,  early  man- 
hood, and  perhaps  into  mature  life,  who  must  furnish 
direction  and  stimulus  and  hope,  and  must  give  ever 
enlarging  vision  of  truth  to  the  ever  growing  man  — 
such  a  minister  will  find  every  talent  he  possesses 
brought  into  use,  every  power  strained  to  utmost 
tension,  and  will  be  forced  into  the  largest  possible 
personal  growth. 

Here  is  a  cogent  reason  for  long  pastorates.  If 
our  churches  encourage  short  terms  of  service,  they 
are  encouraging  in  their  ministers  superficial  habits 
of  study,  reliance  on  materials  long  ago  acquired, 
desultory  efforts  and  quick  retreat.  If  a  church 
follows  its  leader  through  long  ripening  years,  it  is 
summoning  him,  if  he  be  a  rich,  strong  nature,  to  the 
putting  forth  of  his  utmost  powers  and  to  a  develop- 
ment of  which  his  best  friends  did  not  dream. 

Why,  then,  it  is  asked,  is  the  long  term  of  service 
so  rare,  and  the  desire  for  change  so  frequent?  It 
is,  we  must  frankly  confess,  because  as  the  ripeness 
of  later  years  comes  to  the  minister,  the  capacity 
for  moral  initiative,  the  power  to  generate  and  im- 
part moral  energy,  frequently  dwindles  or  vanishes. 
If  garnered  wisdom  or  sagacious  judgment  were  the 


2/8       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL   IN  THE   MINISTRY 

chief  essentials  to  ministerial  success,  —  as  they  are 
to  achievement  in  medicine  or  in  legislation,  —  then 
we  might  usually  expect  to  see  men  of  senatorial 
age  and  dignity  in  our  pulpits.  In  the  bishopric,  or 
in  the  direction  of  great  missionary  and  philan- 
thropic effort,  such  ripened  wisdom  is  the  chief 
essential,  and  any  communion  will  suffer  immense 
loss  if  it  does  not  create  positions  where  men  of 
matured  wisdom  can  exercise  the  statesmanship  for 
which  the  church  is  urgently  calling.  But  in  the 
average  church  power  to  awaken  and  inspire  and 
initiate  and  energize  is  worth  far  more  than  power 
to  advise,  and  the  people  instinctively  feel  that  spir- 
itual energy  is  their  greatest  need.  We  cannot  deny 
that  to  many  men  the  age  of  forty-five  years  is  the 
age  of  disillusion  and  the  cooling  of  enthusiasm.  At 
that  age  they  may  have  become  so  subtly  wise  as  to 
see  the  objections  to  every  affirmation  and  the  diffi- 
culties in  every  program  of  action.  They  still  believe 
in  the  happy  Eden  of  earlier  years,  but  the  gate  is 
now  "with  dreadful  faces  thronged  and  fiery  arms." 
Whenever  men  do  retain  in  later  years  their  buoy- 
ancy and  vision  and  power  to  initiate,  their  churches 
are  glad  still  to  follow. 

Here  the  educational  conception  of  the  minister's 
task  becomes  of  immense  value.  By  leading  both 
preacher  and  congregation  into  continuous  study, 
it  constantly  opens  out  new  vistas  of  truth  and  new 
forms  of  action.    By  fresh  glimpses  of  the  meaning 


EDUCATION   OF  THE   MINISTER    BY    HIS   TASK      2/9 

of  Scripture,  of  church  history,  of  missionary  endeavor, 
of  the  social  applications  of  Christianity,  it  lessens 
the  demand  for  novelty  and  sensation.  It  provides 
for  the  growing  congregation  successive  stages  of 
instruction,  experience  and  effort,  and  requires  at 
least  several  years  under  a  single  leader  to  work 
out  a  definite  result.  The  hurried  pastorate  of  two 
or  three  years  in  length  is  both  cause  and  effect  of  a 
merely  hortatory  pulpit,  while  the  educational  ideal 
implies  and  insures  time  for  growth  as  well  as  for 
appeal. 

And  when  the  inevitable  years  have  brought  a  real 
waning  of  energy  and  initiative,  they  may  also  bring 
opportunity  for  the  best  service  a  man  can  render 
—  the  direction  and  encouragement  of  those  who 
are  still  militant  and  eager  for  the  fray.  Religious 
denominations  which  have  been  thoroughly  organ- 
ized possess  an  obvious  advantage  in  providing  vari- 
ous positions  for  men  of  various  ages  and  talents,  — 
one  place  for  the  stripling  flaming  with  zeal,  and 
quite  another  for  the  less  eager  but  wiser  man  that 
he  will  later  become.  An  organization  that  makes 
the  same  demands  on  Nestor  and  Ajax,  and  has  only 
one  ofl5ce  for  the  venerable  Simeon  and  for  the 
valiant  Simon  Peter,  is  certain  to  become  either 
recklessly  aggressive  or  inertly  wise.  Even  the  most 
democratic  of  Christian  bodies  can  devise  some 
provision  for  varying  gifts  —  old  men  for  counsel 
and  young  men  for  war. 


280       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

But  the  real  age  of  a  spiritual  leader  is  not  to  be 
measured  by  the  calendar.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
years,  but  of  attitude.  That  is  a  pathetic  descrip- 
tion of  old  age  in  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes :  "They 
shall  be  afraid  of  that  which  is  high."  Whenever 
we  stand  timorous  and  querulous  and  faithless 
before  some  lofty  enterprise,  we  are  afraid  of  that 
which  is  high.  Whoever  says,  "That  is  true,  but 
I  dare  not  confess  it ;  that  is  right,  but  I  cannot  do 
it;  that  is  ideal,  but  it  is  forever  beyond  me,"  — 
that  man,  whether  he  be  seventeen  or  seventy,  is 
already  in  his  dotage  and  decrepitude.  But  who- 
ever says,  "That  is  true  and  I  will  proclaim  it;  that 
is  right  and  I  will  do  it ;  that  is  the  ideal  for  me,  for 
my  church,  for  my  country,  and  I  will  forever  fol- 
low it !"  —  that  man,  whatever  his  years,  has  found 
the  fountain  of  youth ;  he  shall  run  and  not  be  weary, 
and  walk  and  not  faint.  Such  men  were  Robertson 
and  Bushnell  and  Beecher  and  Brooks  and  Maclaren. 
There  are  few  positions  in  the  modern  world  that 
have  more  stimulus  to  endeavor,  to  persistent  growth, 
to  utmost  personal  development,  than  that  of  the 
continuous  spiritual  leadership  of  a  single  church 
through  many  broadening  years. 

The  very  fact  that  this  growth  is  of  a  somewhat 
general  character  constitutes  the  minister's  peculiar 
opportunity.  While  the  majority  of  men  under 
modern  conditions  must  devote  themselves  to  a 
highly  specialized   task,  the   minister    is   still    free 


EDUCATION    OF   THE   MINISTER    BY    HIS   TASK       28 1 

to  attain  a  symmetrical  development.  It  i  ilic 
universal  complaint  of  laboring  men  to-day  that  i  ;u  h 
apprentice  must  tend  a  single  machine  and  cannot 
learn  a  trade.  It  is  the  perpetual  lamentation  of 
the  college  professor  that  to  attain  eminence  in  his 
narrowed  field,  he  must  neglect  all  other  depart- 
ments. But  the  minister  counts  nothing  human  as 
foreign  to  his  task.  The  great  field  of  Biblical  study 
will  fascinate  him  from  the  beginning.  The  light 
thrown  by  psychology  on  Christian  preaching 
and  Christian  education  he  will  eagerly  welcome. 
The  relation  of  environment  to  character,  and 
of  economic  conditions  to  the  moral  life,  the 
morality  of  modem  industry,  the  ethics  of  competi- 
tion, the  Christianizing  of  business,  the  true  method 
of  helping  the  poor,  the  duties  of  citizenship  —  all 
these  are  matters  close  to  the  heart  of  his  mission. 
The  progress  of  science  means  to  him  the  growing 
revelation  of  the  divine,  and  every  advance  in  litera- 
ture and  art,  in  justice  and  temperance  and  truth, 
is  to  him  a  part  of  the  true  coming  of  Christ.  He  may 
see  before  him  every  Sunday  the  scientist,  the  econ- 
omist, the  historian  —  men  who  know  more  in  some 
comer  of  the  world's  knowledge  than  he  can  ever 
hope  to  know.  But  he  holds  the  key  that  fits  every 
lock,  the  unifying  principle  that  underlies  all  occupa- 
tions, the  one  message  that  is  needed  by  every  hu- 
man soul,  the  secret  of  Jesus  which  can  touch  every 
life  into  beauty  and  power. 


282       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

"I  have  not  chanted  verse  like  Homer,  no  — 
Nor  swept  string  like  Terpander,  no  —  nor  carved 
And  painted  men  like  Phidias  and  his  friend; 
I  am  not  great  as  they  are  point  by  point. 
But  I  have  entered  into  sympathy 
With  these  four,  running  these  into  one  soul, 
Who,  separate,  ignored  each  other's  art. 
Say,  is  it  nothing  that  I  know  them  all?" 

But  this  breadth  of  horizon  and  aim  cannot  excuse 
the  minister  for  speaking  without  definite  and  ex- 
plicit knowledge  of  the  facts.  Merely  to  dream  of 
human  felicity  and  draw  pictures  of  Utopia  will  not 
help  men,  unless  the  preacher  has  concrete  first- 
hand knowledge  of  present  conditions.  It  is  im- 
possible to  pronounce  on  the  justice  or  injustice  of 
social  and  economic  conditions,  unless  one  knows 
accurately  what  those  conditions  are.  It  is  absurd 
to  condemn  landlords  for  extortion  unless  one  is 
himself  familiar  with  the  tenement  house,  and  unjust 
to  rebuke  men  for  striking  for  higher  wages  unless  we 
have  seen  those  men  face  to  face.  Our  exposition 
of  great  moral  principles  will  be  visionary  and  useless 
unless  based  on  face-to-face  acquaintance  with  the 
human  lives  around  us.  Hence  it  is  necessary  for 
the  preacher  not  only  to  study  the  constitution  of 
society,  the  growth  of  social  institutions  and  laws, 
but  to  know  the  men  and  women  who  live  around 
his  church  —  to  know  them,  not  as  names  in  a  card 
catalogue,  but  as  breathing,  struggling,  human  beings. 
In  one  of  our  western  cities  there  has  been  organ- 


EDUCATION   OP  THE   MINISTER   BY   HIS   TASK      283 

ized  a  bureau  whose  specific  efifort  is  to  place  in  the 
minister's  hands  the  actual  facts  concerning  any 
current  movement  on  which  he  may  be  called  to 
pronounce  judgment.  In  the  same  city  a  pastor  gave 
six  weeks  of  the  year  to  continuous  visitation  of  the 
institutions  for  doing  good  within  a  few  miles  of  his 
church.  It  is  far  more  instructive,  if  less  picturesque, 
to  visit  the  organizations  of  help  than  to  inspect  the 
purlieus  of  vice.  There  is  a  certain  fund  of  present- 
day  information  without  which  no  man  can  safely 
play  the  part  of  ethical  teacher.  Yet  this  information 
is  the  most  difficult  of  all  to  secure.  I  have  known 
a  minister  quite  baffled  in  attempting  to  ascertain  what 
were  the  altruistic  agencies  in  a  certain  section  of  a 
great  city.  They  were  not  shown  on  any  map.  They 
were  not  grouped  in  any  directory.  In  despair  he 
went  to  the  fire  department  and  the  postmaster, 
to  learn  who  in  that  region  were  doing  good  and  how 
they  were  doing  it.  Finally  he  was  compelled  him- 
self to  go  from  street  to  street,  week  after  week, 
and  investigate  with  his  own  eyes  to  secure  informa- 
tion without  which  he  had  no  right  to  speak  on  the 
needs  of  the  city.  In  many  cities  such  information 
is  now  obtained  through  the  Federation  of  Churches. 
Our  preaching  of  the  millennium  will  be  but  a  castle 
in  the  air,  unless  we  have  concrete  personal  knowledge 
of  the  forces  of  good  and  evil  that  play  about  us  to- 
day. Our  religious  prescription  will  be  rejected  and 
our  judgment  rightly  condemned,  unless  we  speak 
from  intimate  personal  acquaintance. 


284       EDUCATIONAL    IDEAL    IN   THE    MINISTRY 

If  we  have  in  some  measure  succeeded  in  showing 
that  the  minister's  calling  is  essential  to  society, 
permanent  in  result,  abounding  in  opportunities 
and  perils,  and  full  of  challenge  to  young  manhood, 
then  every  man  in  that  calling  should  never  retreat 
or  despair  until  he  has  "made  full  proof  of  his 
ministry."  It  is  easy  in  those  moments  of  doubt 
which  come  to  every  idealist  —  doubt  most  acute 
to  those  whose  aims  are  highest  —  it  is  easy  then  to 
imagine  that  in  some  other  calling  we  should  have 
found  the  world  more  appreciative  and  responsive. 
Could  not  I  have  served  God  and  man  as  truly 
—  is  the  seductive  whisper  —  in  some  calling  more 
concrete  and  tangible,  somewhere  in  that  daily 
supply  of  man's  physical  needs  which  the  modern 
world  calls  "business"?  We  need  not,  for  answer, 
describe  the  disappointments  and  vicissitudes  and 
disillusionments  of  other  occupations.  We  need 
simply  note  the  difference  between  working  on  the 
circumference  of  life  and  working  at  its  very  centre, 
between  making  human  life  comfortable  and  giving 
it  meaning,  purpose  and  character.  All  the  honest 
occupations  of  the  world  are  indirectly  contributing 
to  the  one  great  end.  They  furnish  threads  to  the 
fast-flying  shuttles  that  are  closely  weaving  our 
complicated  life.  But  the  minister's  task  is  not 
merely  to  furnish  an  additional  thread,  brighter,  if 
possible,  than  others.  It  is  to  stand  by  the  loom 
and  directly  determine  the  pattern,  color  and  value 


EDUCATION   OF  THE   MINISTER   BV   HIS  TASK      28$ 

of  the  entire  fabric.  There  is  deep  satisfaction  in 
working  at  design  rather  than  material,  in  dealing 
with  the  quality  of  life  rather  than  its  mass. 

Of  course  we  are  oppressed  at  times  with  the 
apparent  evanescence  of  our  work.  The  architect 
knows  that  his  building  will  outlast  his  life.  The 
sculptor  sees  hb  thought  moulded  in  enduring 
bronze.  Simply  to  talk  to  men  and  with  men, 
to  deal  in  such  shadowy  things  as  emotions,  aspira- 
tions and  ideas,  is  it  not  to  write  one's  name  in  water? 
But  in  our  hearts  we  realize  that  the  thinker  is  the 
doer,  that  thoughts  are  powers,  and  that  to  shape 
the  ideals  of  humanity  is  more  than  to  build  triumphal 
arches  or  pyramids.  Elijah  outlasts  Ahab,  Paul's 
"books  and  parchments"  conquer  Casar's  legions, 
Savonarola  is  heard  long  after  the  Medici  are  silent, 
and  John  Wesley  does  more  for  the  social  ameliora- 
tion and  moral  rehabilitation  of  England  than  all  the 
mechanical  inventions  and  legislative  devices  of  his 
century.  Let  a  man  have  at  least  faith  enough  in 
his  own  calling  to  sound  its  utmost  possibilities,  to 
hear  again,  behind  all  passing  frictions  and  discords, 
the  great  heroic  note  of  the  men  who  have  believed 
so  profoundly  in  God,  in  the  soul  of  man,  and  in  the 
value  of  righteousness,  that  they  have  put  to  flight 
armies  of  aliens. 

In  the  present  age,  so  swiftly  changing,  so  dazzled 
by  conflicting  lights,  so  lured  by  various  voices,  per- 
haps the  highest  form  of  personal  courage  is  the 


286       EDUCATIONAL   IDEAL    IN   THE   MINISTRY 

courage  to  believe.  Not  indeed  to  believe  this  or 
that  metaphysical  proposition, —  Christian  faith, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  far  deeper  and  more  vital  than 
that,  and  such  propositions  are  the  outgrowth  and 
not  the  origin  of  religious  experience,  —  but  to 
believe  that  our  little  life  has  eternal  meaning  and 
consequence;  that  God  is  personal,  just  and  loving; 
that  Christ  is  the  supreme  revelation  of  what  God 
is  and  man  may  become;  that  only  through  follow- 
ing him  can  men  reach  the  noblest  personal  character 
or  achieve  social  justice;  and  that  even  now  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand.  To  believe  in  these 
great  realities  with  contagious  conviction,  and  to 
convey  that  faith  by  the  educational  process  to  mul- 
titudes of  others,  is  to  feel  the  power  of  an  abiding  in- 
spiration and  to  render  a  service  indispensable  and 
immortal.  To  the  humblest  men  who  achieve  that 
service  we  may  address  the  words  spoken  to  all 
Christian  teachers  in  the  shadow  of  Rugby  Chapel: 

"Ye  move  through  the  ranks,  recall 
The  stragglers,  refresh  the  outworn, 
Praise,  re-inspire  the  brave ! 
Order,  courage  return. 
Eyes  rekindling  and  prayers 
Follow  your  steps  as  ye  go. 
Ye  fill  up  gaps  in  our  files, 
Strengthen  the  wavering  line, 
Stablish,  continue  our  march, 
On,  on  to  the  bound  of  the  waste, 
On  to  the  city  of  God." 


A  LIST  OF  BOOKS  FOR  TEACHERS 

F^xbUshed  by  The  MdcmilUn  Company 


BAGLEY.  William  Chandlir.  CUttroom  ManAgtment :  Its  Prlaciplet 
and  Technlqae.  By  WillUm  Chandler  Bagiev,  Superintendent  of  ih« 
Training  Department*  State  Normal  School.  Oswego,  N.Y. 

C/otJk.    /jmo.    xvif^js'pa^es.    $1^^!$^ 

The  BdacatiTe  Procesi.        Oo/A.    timo.    xix-^jsS^tffies.    $i^s*'^ 

BUTLER.  Nicholas  Murray.  The  Meaaiac  of  Bducation,  and  Other 
Ssaavi  and  Addretaes.  By  Nicholas  Murray  Butter,  President  of  Colum- 
bia university.  UatA.    t»m0.    xii-\-  2jopng<t.     $ijoon*t, 

CHUBB.  Pkrcival.  The  Teachingof  Bngliah.  By  Percival  Chubb,  Princi- 
pal of  High  School  Department.  Ethical  Culture  School.  New  York. 

Cloth.    i»mo.    xxm-\-4it pages,    $tjoontt, 

COLLAR.  Gborgb.  and  crook.  Charles  W.  School  Management  and 
Methods  of  Instruction.  By  George  Collar  and  Charles  W.  Crook. 
London.  Cloth,    iimo.    viii -^  jj6  pages.    $iaoiut, 

CRONSON.  Bernard.  Methods  in  Elementary  School  Studies.  Bv 
Bernard  Cronson.  A.B..  Ph.D.,  Principal  of  Public  School  No.  3.  Borough 
of  Manhattan.  City  of  New  York.        Cloth,    izmo.    t&j  pages.    %  1.2$  net. 

Pupil  Self-GoTemment.  Cloth,    ramo,    ix  +  tor; pages.    $  .qo  net, 

CUBBERLEY.  Syllabus  of  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Education.  With 
Selected  Bibliographies  and  Suggested  Readings.  By  Ellwood  P.  Cub- 
berley.  Associate  Professor  of  ^ucation.  Leland  Stanford  Junior  Univer- 
sity.    Second  Edition,  revised  and  enlarged.     In  two  parts. 

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DE  GARMO.  Charles.  Interest  and  Education.  By  Charles  De  Garmo, 
Professor  of  the  Science  and  Art  of  Education  in  Cornell  University. 

Cloth.    i2mo.    xvii  +  ijo pages.    $1.00  met, 

The  Principles  of  Secondary  Education. 

yol.  I,  Studies.     Cloth.    i2mo.    xii -{■  jqq  pages.    $/.»siui. 

VoL  lit  Processes  of  Instruction,    xii  -j-  ko  pages.    %  uoo  met. 

Vol.  Ill,  Processes  of  Instruction.    In  press, 

DEXTER.  Edwin  Grant.    A  History  of  Education  in  the  United  States. 

By  Edwin  Grant  Dexter,  Professor  of  Education  in  the  University  of  Illinois. 

Cloth,    xxi  +  66s  pages.    8vo.    $  2.00  net. 

DUTTON,  Samuel  T.  Social  Phases  of  Education  in  the  School  and  the 
Home.  Bv  Samuel  T.  Dutton,  Superintendent  of  the  Horace  Mann 
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DUTTON  &  SNEDDEN.    The  Administration  of  Public  Education  in  the 

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Ph.D.    With  an  Introduction  by  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

Cloth,    viii+s^s  pages.    Bibliography.    Index.    i2mto.    $i.7sm4t. 


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FITCH,  Sir  Joshua.  Educational  Aims  and  Methods.  Lectures  and  Ad- 
dresses by  Sir  Joshua  Fitch,  late  Her  Majesty's  Inspector  of  Training 
Colleges.  Clo^A.    xii-\- 448  pages,    j2mo.    $1.25  net. 

Lectures  on  Teaching.  Cloth,    xiii-^sg^ pages,    ibmo.    $1.00  net. 

OILMAN,  Mary  L.  Seat  Work  and  Industrial  Occupations.  A  Practical 
Course  for  Primary  Grades.  By  Mary  L.  Oilman,  Principal  of  the  Clay 
School,  Minneapolis,  Minn.,  and  Elizabeth  L.  Williams,  Principal  of  the 
Holmes  School,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Fully  illustrated.     Cloth.    14J  pages.     Square  izmo.     $.50  net. 

OANONO,  William  F.  The  Teaching  Botanist.  A  Manual  of  Informa- 
tion upon  Botanical  Instruction,  together  with  Outlines  and  Directions  for 
a  Comprehensive  Elementary  Course.  By  William  F.  Oanong,  Ph.D., 
Professor  of  Botany  in  Smith  College. 

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HALLECK,  Reuben  Post.  The  Education  of  the  Central  Nervous  System. 
A  Study  of  Foundations,  especially  of  Sensory  and  Motor  Training.  By 
Reuben  Post  Halleck.  M.A.  (Yale). 

Cloth.    i2mo.    xii-\-2§8 pages.    $1.00  net. 

HANUS,  Paul  H.  A  Modem  School.  By  Paul  H.  Hanus,  Professor  of  the 
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HERBART,  JOHN  FREDERICK.  Outlines  of  Educational  Doctrine.  By  John 
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English  and  Scandinavian  Philology  and  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  the  College 
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HERRICK,  Cheesman  A.  The  Meaning  and  Practice  of  Commercial  Edu- 
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HORNE,  Herman  Harrell.  The  Philosophy  of  Education.  By  Herman 
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MAJOR.  David  R.  Pint  Sttpa  in  Mental  Growth.  A  Series  of  Studies  in 
the  Piycholoffy  of  Inftuicy.  By  David  R.  Major,  ProfeMor  of  Education 
in  the  Ohio  bttUe  University. 

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MONROE.  Paul.  A  Brief  Coarse  in  the  History  of  Education.  By  Paul 
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O'SHEA,  M.  V.  Dynamic  Factors  In  Education.  By  M.  V.  O'Shea,  Pro- 
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A  LIST  OF  BOOKS  FOR  TEACHERS  — Continued 


PARK,  Joseph  C.    Educational  Woodworking  for  Home  and  School.    By 

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C/otA.     j2mo.    xiii-\-jzo  pages,  illus.     $i.oo  net. 

PERRY,  Arthur  C.  The  Management  of  a  City  School.  By  Arthur  C. 
Perry,  Jr.,  Ph.D.,  Principal  of  Public  School  No.  85,  Brooklyn,  N.Y. 

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ROWE,  Stuart  H.  The  Physical  Nature  of  the  Child.  By  Dr.  Stuart  H. 
Rowe,  Professor  of  Psychology  and  the  History  of  Education,  Training 
School  for  Teachers,  Brooklyn,  N.Y. 

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ROYCE,  JosiAH.  Outlines  of  Psychology.  An  Elementary  Treatise  with 
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of  Philosophy  in  Harvard  University. 

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SHAW,  Edward  R.    School  Hygiene.    By  the  late  Edward  R.  Shaw. 

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SMITH,  David  E.  The  Teaching  of  Elementary  Mathematics.  By  David 
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SNEDDEN  AND  ALLEN .  School  Reports  and  School  EfBciency .  By  David 
S.  Snedden,  Ph.D.,  and  William  H.  Allen,  Ph.D.  For  the  New  York 
Committee  on  Physical  Welfare  of  School  Children. 

Cloth.    i2tno.    xi  ■\- 183  pages.    %i.$onet. 

VANDEWALKER,  NiNA  C.  The  Kindergarten  in  American  Education. 
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Milwaukee  State  Normal  School. 

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WARNER,  Francis.  The  Study  of  Children  and  Their  School  Training. 
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WINTERBURN  and  BARR.    Methods  in  Teaching.    Being  the  Stockton 
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